Princess of Death
by Lalaith Quetzalli
Summary: -AU to Nightingale.- Death drew them together, and it would never be able to pull them apart. Starks are made of iron, strong and enduring; Salanis are like the breeze, soft and gentle. The result of both will be a girl with the strength of the warriors, the kindness of the guardians and a will that not even death shall be able to quell. Ever. (Can be Read as Stand Alone) (Cameos)
1. Daughter

Ok, to start. I don't own anything, yadda, yadda... you know the speech by now.

For those interested in dream-cast: Silbhé Salani/Arianna Grayson/Nightingale is played by Emily Browning; Kathryn Salani/Eileen Grayson by Kristin Scott Thomas. (Others to be added as they appear).

This is perhaps the fic where I've deviated the most from canon to date, not only in the obvious ways, the ways you'll notice because they differ from how things went in the MCU; but also the less obvious ways, the ones only those who've been following my Nightingale series will notice. I hope I've been able to explain properly the reason behind each change in this fic, but if you've any doubts don't hesitate to ask me.

This fic consists of three parts, there will be some considerable jumps in time, hope you won't mind too much. Chapters will be coming every other week. Also, this is the second time I'll address the matter of the Civil War, though I'll let you discover how exactly when the time comes. (I'm also contemplating addressing it, at least to a point, in the main timeline; something I'd originally said I wouldn't do... but I'm still undecided on that point).

Anyway, hope you'll enjoy this fic, here we go!

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Princess of Death

(Alternative Universe to _Nightingale_ )

 _By: Lalaith Quetzalli_

 _Death drew them together, and it would never be able to pull them apart. Starks are made of iron, strong and enduring; Salanis are like the breeze, soft and gentle. The result of both will be a girl with the strength of the warriors, the kindness of the guardians and a will that not even death shall be able to quell. Ever._

 **Daughter of Iron and Breeze**

I was taught to be as strong as iron, yet as gentle as a summer breeze.

I died when I was six years old. The important part, at least to some, would be perhaps the fact that I didn't stay dead. I was with my dad in our car, we were on our way back home from a concert in the State Theater in Portland. It'd been a beautiful outing, just the two of us, we'd watched a very talented pianist play (Mama had been a pianist, had even given a few concerts, both with a symphony and solo before I was born; she was in fact supposed to go back once I was old enough... but then she got sick and died, so that never happened...).

We were on the highway, on our way to Westbrook, it was night, but not too late, and dad didn't seem to mind driving like that. I will never know what happened exactly; I was too young and had been a bit sick recently, wasn't awake enough to know how things happened. All I knew was that there was a terrible accident. Both dad and I were believed to be dead by the paramedics who found us, and while I was fortunate enough to come back, he wasn't.

No one ever told me how long I was believed to be dead, though I know it was bad, Aunt Kathryn (she was just my aunt back then) suffered a lot, believing to have lost all her remaining family in one swoop. Then again, I didn't tell anyone about the things I saw when I was dead...

I didn't understand a lot of it, but I knew it was important, somehow. I remembered having been in a place with a lot of mist, so much I couldn't see my feet, much less the ground, I was wearing a beautiful dress I'd never before seen in my life and felt... different, in ways I couldn't quite explain, not even to myself. I remembered standing before what, at first sight, seemed like a mirror, except that it wasn't my reflection I saw on it, but instead someone else entirely. A young woman, half a head or so taller than me, with perfectly unblemished milky-white skin, bright-auburn hair falling around her shoulders in thick, loose curls, she was wearing a lilac corseted dress with thing straps and no sleeves, an off-white shawl wrapped loosely around her shoulders; the things I noticed the most, though, was the white-gold and crystal intricately made tiara that sat upon her head, and the fact that her eyes were hazel, just like my own. I raised my hand to touch my not-reflection, and she did the same; I could never be sure if our fingers actually touched or not, but the image disappeared all the same in the next instant.

My dreams started after that night. I would dream myself in my rose garden in Salani manor, sitting on a thin mat, surrounded by all the beautiful flowers and the nightingales that kept flitting around from one to the next. He would arrive then, I could never be sure of his age, his looks, could only retain the fact that he had raven-black hair and jade-green eyes that seemed to carry so many stories, so many feelings, I probably wouldn't be able to unravel them all even had I a lifetime to drown in them...

I went through several surgeries while in the hospital, including a multiple transplant that, by some kind of miracle, helped push the leukemia I'd been dealing with for nearly a year (though no one in the family liked talking about it, or the very real danger it had meant for my life... probably due to how mama died of the very same thing...) into remission. Or at least that's what we were lead to believe. It would be quite a while before we learned that there were more forces influencing our lives than the ones we knew of and could comprehend.

When I was finally recovered enough to get out of the hospital I was surprised when Aunt Kathryn didn't take me back home. Instead she drove to an unknown apartment I'd never seen before. There she sat me down and we had what was probably the most important conversation of my life. I learned about Kathryn Adler, about how she'd worked for the government for fifteen years, first in MI5, then the SSR, and finally SHIELD; how she'd only retired in order to help my dad raise me, after Mama's passing. And she hadn't been any agent, she'd been a great one, partner to Agent Shannon Carter and the legendary Peggy Carter's second protege. Part of a team in SHIELD that had been called the Elites; she had also been given the code-name of Sphinx, after a mission in Egypt she could tell me nothing about. As it happened, the Sphinx had enemies, even years after being retired. She had reason to believe one of those enemies was behind the car accident, that it had been no accident at all. That meant we would potentially be in great danger, were we to return to Salani manor... which was why we didn't do that.

A few days later Eileen and Arianna Grayson, a single-mother and her six year old daughter, moved to Malibu, California where, thanks to some contacts, Eileen soon began working as housekeeper for one Anthony Stark. It was the start of a whole new life for all of us.

 **xXx**

The next ten years were... an experience. At first life as Arianna Grayson seemed like some kind of fairy-tale, a great adventure; eventually it became simply my new life. Miss Pepper, Tony's (he insisted that we were never to call him Mr. Stark; though I did call him Dr. Stark when I wanted to be particularly respectful) PA was the only one who knew our true origins, as Tony said he didn't want her to have a bad impression of any of us. No one else knew the truth, though at least Rhodey (Sgt. James Rhodes of the Air Force) and Happy (Happy Hogan, former-boxer, current driver and bodyguard) eventually gave us a chance.

It took a while getting used to JARVIS, before going to live in Stark mansion I could have never imagined such a being. I knew he was more than a computer program, though Tony tended to downplay him to strangers, pretend that was all he was, because most people simply weren't ready to accept everything JARVIS truly was. Mom and I understood that, so we wouldn't speak to him when there were strangers around, but when it was only us? Then we did our best to treat JARVIS as if were just another person, one of us.

The mansion wasn't actually that hard to clean, taking turns to clean certain areas on specific days. I even helped mom do the easy tasks, harder ones as I got older. The only place we never entered was the workshop, as Tony insisted it was too dangerous; though mom and I did make sure that he leave it long enough to eat, shower and sleep with some regularity. I helped mom where I could, at least when I wasn't doing my own work; even if I was home-schooled, that did not mean I was allowed to slack. Tony had actually offered to give me recommendations for several high-end private schools, or for the local public school (he knew, better than most, that not everyone actually liked attending private schools); but as it happened, I much preferred being home-schooled; and as everyone soon realized, I was going so fast through the curriculum that any decent school would have suggested I get tutors instead. Tony actually got in at some point, began helping teach me math and the hard sciences, though I wasn't too good, and didn't like them as much as he did. Pepper gave me some tips for math and economics (she had a Masters Degree in Accounting, and a Bachelor's in Administration besides), Happy taught me some self-defense moves, just in case, and also how to drive (especially how to do, what he called 'forceful driving' when in case of an emergency). Rhodey put in his two cents where it came to self-defense and, after somehow managing to convince mom, he also taught me how to shoot and use a knife; I hated guns with a passion, but I understood why it was important for me to know such things, so I took it with good graces and did my best.

I was twelve when I had a very important decision to make. I was finished with schooling up to high-school level, and mom didn't have a degree in the areas I wanted to study, which would mean going to an actual school. I was given the option of taking one or more years before doing it, continue studying languages meanwhile; but I was already studying languages, was fluent in six (English, Irish, Norse, Spanish, German and Japanese) by that point, and was halfway there with two more (Italian and French... with Chinese and Russian being next on the list). In the end I decided to give it a try, it's not like I couldn't walk away and go back later if I decided I was too young for college life.

That was the same year when Stark Industries branched out and the Technology Department was born. From what I later learned, Tony happened to hear me while I was cursing at my computer for crashing on me for the umpteenth time while I was writing the essay for admittance into the University of California. Two weeks later I was presented with a prototype for what would eventually become the first StarkPC.

At first I wanted to refuse, I really did (and mom almost had a stroke). But eventually Tony convinced us that by accepting it I could use it, see what quirks it might still have, and then I could tell him so he could correct them before taking the proposal to the Board. And so I became tester for the new products (no joke, I even ended with a contract and everything, though it was mom who signed it, as I was way too young for that). A phone and a tablet followed in the next month. Mom and I did find a few details off in the products, but they were all smoothed out, so by the time Tony actually took the proposal to the Board it was all so good they couldn't say no.

Well, there was one person who didn't like it. I wasn't around for that particular confrontation, but I did learn that Mr. Stane didn't seem to like the idea of a Technology Department too much, he wanted SI to make only weapons. In the end Tony used the numbers to convince him (and the fact that the Board had already agreed with him helped).

I entered UCDavis that fall, in the end I couldn't fully make up my mind, so I took two Majors: Communications and International Relations; and two minors: Sociology and Political Sciences (this aside from continuing my studies in various languages). My intention was to one day work in SI, possibly in Public Relations. Tony, Mom, Pepper and everyone else I considered family and friend fully supported my plan.

The life I had at sixteen was so different from anything I might have imagined when I was six years old, before my father's death, that I could hardly believe it. I had no idea that the world wasn't done throwing me curve balls just yet...

When I woke up to Tony sitting beside my bend, running a hand up and down my ankle in absolute silence I just knew something was wrong... I had no idea just how much. The previous night he'd taken mom as his +1 to a charity event of the Maria Stark Foundation. It was nothing new. Mom had been his +1 to any such events (whenever he couldn't convince Pepper to go with him, at least); neither of them saw it as anything more than it was, a night for friends, and it helped keep the harpies and whores that were only after the Stark money and perhaps a story they might sell to the papers away (there had been far too many of those).

"Oh Ari..." I couldn't help but notice how hoarse his voice was.

"Tony, you're scaring me." I admitted, sitting up slowly.

"Ari... I..." He ran a hand down his face. "I'm sorry..."

"Tony..." It hit me, why everything was so wrong right then. "Tony where's my mom?"

"I'm sorry Ari..." He repeated.

"Where's my mom...?" I repeated, unable to keep myself from getting hysterical. "Tony...?!"

"She's gone Ari..." He admitted after what seemed like forever. "Eileen is dead."

"No!" I hissed. "No! That's impossible. Mom cannot be, she cannot... nonononono, NO! Not my mom! Not her too! NOOOOO!"

I blacked out then. Found myself flung straight back to where I'd been before waking. A beautiful garden that I could have sworn was somehow a mix of the start of my rose-patch in the old Salani Manor (though I hadn't really seen it in a decade by that point), the little garden Tony had had built just for me in a corner of the property, for my twelfth birthday, and one or two others I thought I might have seen before, yet couldn't recall when or where. It was the place of my every dream, and my companion was there as well. Black hair, green eyes, dressed in a green and black a mix of linen and leather. He was always barefoot there, as was I, dressed in a soft lavender sleeveless dress with a straight neckline and a white sash.

He didn't ask me what was wrong, truth was I wasn't sure if we ever actually spoke any in those dreams. If we did I couldn't remember it upon waking, never had, though I knew for sure we had been sharing dreams (could it be called sharing when I wasn't even sure if he was real or not? I thought he was, at least) at the very least since I was six. There were no questions asked or answers given, but there was no need, words were unnecessary; he just held me tight, and I held onto him as well, and that was somehow enough to bring a measure of comfort to a heart that was breaking with the news that I'd just lost the only remaining member of my blood family.

I was fortunate enough to be able to bring some of that comfort with me to the waking world, where I also came to the realization that I was not alone, I'd never be. Even if mom was gone, I still had family: Tony, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey; they might not be such by blood, but they were family in every way that counted, and that was more than enough.

As it happened, we were actually more family than I ever expected. As Tony explained it to me there was a plan. It had been made five years earlier, when mom's and Tony's research rendered a name for the one responsible for dad's death: the Winter Soldier. It wasn't like anything could be done about it; dad's death had been ruled an accident, and the Winter Soldier was believed to be a myth by almost everyone in the world. Mom and Tony both knew better.

Mom did everything in her power to protect me. From us moving to the other side of the country, cutting ties completely with everyone and everything we might have known, the change in names, mom had even dyed her hair blonde (mine wasn't necessary, as I was still young). Mom had done everything in her power to make sure the people who might be after her, who had gotten dad while trying to kill her (or perhaps all along they intended to hurt her by killing her loved ones, who knew?). And yet she'd been pragmatic enough to know her plans might not be enough in the end; and so, one more had been made.

JARVIS called it the 'Princess Protocol', it was a last-resource kind of plan, meant to put me in such a position where no one would dare touch me. Of course Tony offered me to change my name again, make a new life somewhere else in the world, anywhere. I refused, not only because it felt wrong, running away; but because he was family, and I wasn't giving him (and the others) up without a hell of a fight. And so the protocol was implemented.

Three days later the funeral of Eileen Grayson took place. The press was there, everyone knew that Tony had been with mom in the limo when she died. And that was when the reveal took place, when I was introduced as Arianna Maria Grayson-Stark, Tony Stark's daughter. The press went crazy then, the flashes of the cameras nearly blinding me; but I'd known it was coming, I didn't back down, didn't even flinch, I stood tall (though I was quite small), in my long black skirt, blouse and scarf, my hand on my new dad's arm, Pepper, Happy and Rhodey behind us in a show of unity and support.

The public story was that mom and dad had been lovers for several months in the early nineties, they cared for one another, but simply weren't in love with each other, had never been. She never told him about me, had no interest in his money. JARVIS had made up records to make it seem like mom had finally sought him out when I was in the hospital, and that I'd been there for the surgery to treat the leukemia, rather than any accident. After that he supposedly had convinced mom to have us go with him back to Malibu; but she refused to just take his money, which was how she ended working for him. It turned out that my genius had even helped with the story, even if my areas of study had nothing to do with Tony's, it was believed that it was the 'Stark genius' showing through. In short everyone bought it.

The only real trouble was perhaps Stane, (Tony called him Obi, as the man was his godfather, he even tried to convince me to do the same, but I'd never liked him; for some reason even I couldn't comprehend, there was something about Obadiah Stane I simply didn't like). It wasn't that he didn't believe the story, actually he did; it was more his belief that an illegitimate daughter was a stain on the Stark name... I thought it was ridiculous.

It would be a while but eventually I would learn of his other objection. That he hated the idea of a girl, especially one who didn't even like guns, one day inheriting the company. Tony telling him that was why SI was branching out, and half-confessing his idea of slowly pulling out of the weapons' business didn't help out any.

Such things were already in motion, Tony kept creating technology, and there was a possibility for the creation of a medical branch as well; one that, at least initially, would direct its efforts to helping with veterans' crippling injuries. That, and the fact that Tony had reassured the military (through Rhodey) that while he would be stopping producing weapons, SI would continue supplying them with their best in body-armor, armored vehicles and all kinds of protection certainly helped pacify them. What didn't was Stane's continued 'reassurances' that he'd 'convince' Tony to change his mind.

I just knew there was something rotten there, I just didn't have the proof, and since I was no good with computers (other than the basics) I decided to find someone who could help me. It was how I eventually met the two best hackers in the world, known across the web as BlueCloud and TaserNinja (though some liked to call her TaserQueen, the Queen of Hackers). Neither of them could be swayed by money, though when I shared my worries they in the end both agreed to help unearth everything they could about Obadiah Stane; I'd be paying for their service in tech, which they both appreciated a lot more than money itself.

Dad gave me a gift a month or so after I officially became a Stark, a new companion and assistant in some ways. Her name was FRIDAY and she was an AI much like JARVIS, though still in its infancy, which meant that the way I treated her would influence how she finished developing. I loved that. Dad found it funny how I tended to treat her like a dear friend or a baby sister at times, though considering he himself referred to her as FRI and baby-girl, he'd no ground to stand on. She was in all my Stark tech and could access the house mainframe with some help from JARVIS though from the most part she stayed only with me.

After some considerations it was decided that I'd back to school, get another degree. While I was perfectly qualified for the post of Public Relations I hoped to take in SI, dad believed I was still young and should get to enjoy my teenage years for as long as I could (and wanted), so in the end I decided to take the opportunity and study more languages, and another major. I chose Nursing, because it was something different, challenging, because I hoped it might one day help me take better care of my dad (there had been certain 'accidents' in the workshop before, and I wanted to be able to do more than just call an ambulance). Also, and while I never acknowledged it out-loud, it was a tribute to my mom, to who she'd been, to my Aunt Kathryn Salani, the nurse, the caretaker, the woman who'd given everything up, more than once, for me... For the world I was little more than a doll, a figure, the Stark princess they called me, like I was some action figure and not a real person. To her I'd only been Arianna (Silbhé...)

That's what the public called me, literally, the Stark Princess. I'd even read a few magazines were I was referred to as the Princess of Death, which journalists thought was all-so-funny, since they already called my dad Merchant of Death. Dad only scoffed and said that at least they'd gotten the 'princess' right. He even asked me if I wanted to do something to keep them from printing such things, but in the end I decided not to. People would believe what they wanted to believe, and trying to muzzle them could end up making things worse... so I just endured it, much as he did. I was sure I didn't imagine the look on pride when I explained my line of thought.

I also took great delight in playing matchmaker for my dad and Pepper. I convinced each of them that the other was in love with them but didn't say a word out of fear of making things awkward at work (and in my dad's case, fearing that Pepper might hold his past as a playboy against him). Truth was I sometimes could almost see the bonds tying the two of them together, like ribbons of multi-colored light, couldn't believe they didn't realize it themselves. While dad hadn't exactly been celibate in the years since I'd come to live in Malibu, he wasn't as bad as he'd been in his youth, as the tabloids claimed he still was, and Pepper knew it. She knew that dad did not love mom, though he held her in great regard; I also believed that they were meant to be.

They began dating, which made me cheer in the privacy of my own bedroom. They were taking things slow, much slower than he ever had, which I thought was a good thing. It also meant that the press had no idea anything was going on; it was already normal for them to go on events together, even dance, so that did not raise any flags.

Life was good, or as good as it could be really... and then Afghanistan happened...

 **xXx**

There was an Award Ceremony in Las Vegas. Pepper and I weren't there because she had a number of back-to-back meetings at SI, while I had school (I was in my second and hopefully last year of Nursing School at the time and getting ready to get certified in Russian, with which I'd have ten languages under my belt; Portuguese and Greek were next). When Rhodey phoned and told me what had happened just hours earlier to the Humvee dad had been in, and that he was missing... I nearly snapped.

I didn't black out though, not like I had when I was sixteen and had just lost my mom, I didn't allow myself the blessing of unconsciousness, of denial; I knew I didn't have that luxury, because I was Arianna Stark, heiress to Stark Industries, Princess of Death, I had a job to do. And so I set off to do it.

After a talk with SI lawyers the company was footing the bill to get the injured soldiers back to the States and under the best medical care possible; we also paid for the medical service for those who hadn't survived (which were regretfully many). There were some suggestions that the survivors, somewhere down the road, might be seen as the perfect candidates to become the first beneficiaries of the brand new Medical Department of SI.

Pepper kept things going, as Tony's PA for more than a decade she had a lot of trust and leeway. It would not occur to me until much later just how odd it was that Stane hadn't done anything, neither to help or to curtail us.

Four weeks passed, the most insane and stressful month I'd ever lived, and then the search was called off. The shock was so great I actually stopped breathing for a few seconds.

"They what?!" It would have been a shriek if I'd had enough air in my lungs to speak that loud, as it was, I was heard quite clearly.

"My superiors believe that all lines of inquiry have been exhausted..." Rhodey began.

"All lines of inquiry...?" I repeated, breathless. "Exhausted? They haven't found him yet, have they? No, of course they haven't. Which means he's still out there, which means there are places they haven't searched yet; which of course means not all lines have been exhausted!"

"Ari..." Rhodey began, trying to sooth me.

"Don't!" I snapped, then forced myself to calm down. "I know it's not your fault Rhodey, this was not your decision."

"Of course it wasn't." He agreed, not taking my snapping personally, he was good like that (and if he could deal with dad's moods, he could certainly deal with mine). "I haven't given up Ari, I will never give up. Trust me on that."

"I do." I nodded, then turned to Pepper. "What about SI?"

"They're still out there, but there are rumors they'll be pulled back in two weeks at most." Pepper admitted grimly.

"What?!" That was definitely the last thing I wanted to hear. "Why?!"

"Stane's orders." Pepper almost hissed.

I froze. I'd suspected for over a year that something was really, really wrong with that man. My two 'friends' were still working on getting me the information I needed, I'd even sent them some tech in advance when they explained that some of the info they were pulling was so secure it was taking longer than they expected, and they didn't have the right equipment to do things faster without risking losing it all.

"On what authority?" I asked, suspicious.

"As vice-president and interim-CEO..." Pepper began.

I went non-verbal at that, many words running through my head, yet I was too angry to say them out-loud, so instead I just gesticulated and waved my hands a lot.

"Arianna..." Pepper began, probably fearing what I might be thinking.

"Pepper, there is a board meeting tomorrow, correct?" I asked softly but very seriously.

Rhodey and even Happy (also in the room) froze, probably already suspecting that whatever I was planning was big.

"That is correct, Miss Stark." Her voice and choice of address showed she had a very good idea of what I was planning, and she would back me up all the way.

"Then I guess it's time the board accept that I, and not Mr. Stane, am my father's heir-apparent." I stated in a no-nonsense tone.

 **xXx**

I never formally dropped from the Nursing Program, there simply was no time. I had work to do. I hadn't finished my degree (on the positive side, I didn't have to worry about having to do the practical work in an actual hospital and dealing with people wanting 'Nurse Stark' to treat them, simply because I'm a public figure), I wasn't even eighteen yet (still three months to go), but there just was no more time. I had no power in the military, but I did have it in SI, I was dad's heiress in every way that counted, I also had voting shares of my own, and I had the will. I wasn't going to let them give up!

From what I was told later on, the meeting was epic (even dad agreed, months later, while he was recovering and JARVIS showed him a recording of it to keep him entertained). I had no problem telling who among the board were on my side, those who had their doubts but respected me (or my dad, or my name) enough to at least give me a chance, and those who were (almost violently) against me. The last I suspected might even agree with Stane that SI should do weapons, and nothing more than that. Like branching out into technology and medical somehow made the company less, rather than more. Which was absolutely ridiculous (much like thinking that a woman being CEO was wrong for some reason...).

In the end I had the law on my side, and was good enough at spinning things to get a majority vote in my favor, which meant I was Acting CEO of Stark Industries before the meeting ended. I didn't do anything big that first meeting, aside from confirming all the projects in the works for the three branches of SI (though Medical wasn't 'out' in the public just yet), then announced that the search for my dad would continue, and I wasn't listening for any objections.

That same afternoon I got in touch with BlueCloud and TaserNinja, asking them to up their efforts if at all possible; and to get me anything they might have on any and all connections of Stane's (I just knew I'd be getting trouble from there, sooner or later). I even managed to convince JARVIS to let JOCASTA (a mostly unfinished AI that JARVIS himself had created, with some guidance from dad) into the SI network to help the two hackers get into the necessary files. He couldn't do it himself as he was busy searching for dad through the world; also, Stane or someone else might notice his electronic signature, no one would pick up on JOCASTA's, because no one so much as suspected she existed.

Two more months later, dad was found. More precisely, Rhodey found him, in the middle of the freaking desert, after having blown his way out of the caves where the Ten Rings had kept him. I went to meet him in Bagram Base in Kabul. Officially I was there to thank the men and women involved in the search, and to deliver the news of the bonuses they'd be receiving from SI for getting Tony Stark back; unofficially I just wanted to see him...

It was insane, while I had known Tony for over a decade, for ten years he'd been nothing more than mom's boss, perhaps a friend. Even when I agreed with the 'Princess Protocol', I just saw the whole thing as following mom's wishes. And yet somehow... somehow in the year and a half since I'd come to love him dearly, at times I felt like I loved him more than my real father... then again, I lost him when I was barely six, hardly have any more memories of him than I do of Mama... Painful, maybe cynical, but no less accurate.

When I saw dad, when I saw his chest... what was in it... I wasn't sure if I was going to pass out or be sick in front of everyone. In the end I forced myself to do neither, instead I embraced him gingerly and wished with all my strength that I had a way of helping him... I had no idea the kind of effects that desire would have.

Of course, because dad is... dad, he just had to cause chaos. He'd barely made it back stateside when he asked for two things: cheeseburgers, and a press conference. And it was there that things really got crazy, when he publicly announced the closing of the Weapons' Department of SI. Of course Stane tried to cut him off, to deny what dad had just announced, I refused to allow that. So I took the mic before he could and, pushing aside my nervousness I began speaking:

"Ladies and gentlemen." I called evenly. "I know this decision might seem sudden to some of you, the actions of a man who's been hurt, a lot, in the past three months, and while we all know my father has, indeed, been greatly hurt, I can assure you no decisions are ever made, by either of us, in the rush. We Starks take our company very seriously, same with the people who work for us, whose livelihoods depend on us. We'd never let them down." I ignored Stane's attempts to stop me, standing my ground. "This, closing down the Weapons Department of SI, has been in the cards for a while now. I want to go on record saying that this doesn't mean we're abandoning our troops, the good men and women fighting for our country. SI will still be producing armor and everything that can be used for defense, the best we can provide, we shall. It's just the weapons we're walking away from. It has been proven that, in the hands of the wrong people, they can be very dangerous, this choice isn't just about protecting our lives, but every man, woman and child who might be or have ever been affected by one of our weapons." The press had stopped accusing, they were intrigued, now I just needed to make sure to leave them wanting for more. "Ladies and gentlemen let me take this moment to announce the upcoming opening of a new SI branch. I'm talking about Stark Medical. We'll be opening our doors to the public in three months, providing people with the best in prosthesis and other aids. Thank you for coming and I'm afraid we'll not be taking any questions for now."

Stane actually tried to stop me as I walked past him and straight to where dad was standing, looking at me with so much pride I couldn't help the wide smile in my face. I didn't let him stop me, twisting my hand in his to force him to let go unless he wanted to cause a scene (and of course he didn't want that).

I think it might have been my actions that day, my speech, that made him move against dad so much sooner than he'd have otherwise.

 **xXx**

Dad not only didn't mind me revealing the surprise ahead of time, I actually got to hear him boasting to the members of the board how bright I was, how great the decision had been. Against all the odds, SI shares were actually going up, instead of down. SI had already proven it could do more than just weapons, the phones, tablets and PCs were selling so well, and there was more coming, so there were high hopes for the Medical branch.

The future was looking so bright... which is of course why something just had to go wrong (I hate Murphy's law with a passion...). I got a joint call from Blue and Taser telling me their research was finished, they'd sent me their findings, heavily encrypted of course, though one thing they did know for sure: as long as Obadiah Stane was alive dad wasn't safe, and neither was I. He was the one who'd gotten the Ten Rings to kidnap him (actually, they were supposed to kill him, but they went off the script, thinking they'd get more if they kept him alive, get weapons and ransom, though that hadn't worked too well). It wasn't even the first time he tried to kill dad, he'd tried it before, a little over a year earlier, hired a hitman to assassinate him... only the bullet hadn't hit him, it had hit mom instead. As it happened, her former life as a spy had nothing to do with mom's death, it had been Stane's desire to see dad dead and getting his hands on the company, and of course the Stark money.

I was furious, so much I could have sworn I went cold, practically ice-cold in my rage. Might have even hit something if FRIDAY hadn't spoken right then:

"Princess!" Since the implementation of the protocol, JARVIS had taken to calling me that, and FRIDAY had followed his lead.

"FRI?" I asked, confused, I'd never heard her sounding so distressed.

"Sir's in danger!" She squeaked. "JARVIS is down and Sir's in danger!"

I didn't even think about it, I just ran. I was barefoot and wearing nothing but my nightgown but I didn't really feel the cold, all my focus was on getting to my dad. And somehow I managed to run down the hall, a flight of stairs and to the main sitting without making a single noise (though I wouldn't actually realize that until much later). I forced myself to stop just outside the sitting-room itself, stop and wait for an opportunity to act.

"Tony." It was Stane! "When I ordered the hit on you, I worried that I was killing the golden goose. But, you see, it was just fate that you survived that. You had one last golden egg to give."

I had to literally press a fist to my mouth to keep myself from screeching at the bastard for daring to attack my dad, and his whole stupid speech?! Like there was any sort of justification for what he was doing, any possible excuse...

I chose to push that aside, as I began looking fast for something, anything that could be used as a weapon. There wasn't really much to choose from... not without JARVIS to open the safes.

"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?" Stane went on. "Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?"

"A much better one, I'm sure." I spat as I stepped forth, revealing myself.

I had a gun in hand, one of the useful things I was able to find hidden away in the little table at the entrance of the sitting room.

Stane actually stopped, half-bent over my dad, some kind of tool in hand, I didn't need to be a genius to deduce what he intended to do with it.

"Oh Arianna..." He began.

"Put that down and step away from my father." I stated in my most serious tone, gun aimed straight at his head.

"Arianna Grayson, the bastard daughter of a bitch who thought she could insinuate herself with those far above her station..." He went on, almost hissing, like a viper.

"You mean like you did with Howard Stark?" I asked in a drawl, cocking my head sideways. "You've always wanted SI, wanted all the money, power and position the Starks possessed, but it's not yours and it will never be. You do not deserve it!"

"Neither do you bitch!" Stane almost snarled.

"I care very little for such things." I shrugged.

"Then why don't you just walk away?" He asked. "Walk away now..."

"And what? You might let me live?" I let out a cold chuckle. "That's not how it works Stane. See, I don't care for money, power or anything like that. But I do care about you not getting it, I care about dad... and I also care about you paying for almost killing my dad twice, and for being the reason my mom is dead!"

He couldn't hide the surprise from his expression. It was obvious he wasn't expecting me to know that much, or perhaps it was dad he didn't expect me to care about. Considering that he was godfather and cared not at all... perhaps caring was an alien concept to him? It wouldn't change things any, not for any of us, but I did wonder.

"You're not going to shoot." He was supremely confident about that.

The gun fell from between my hands, I knew he was right, had known it all along; but then again, the gun was meant to call his attention, it wasn't the weapon I intended to use...

Stane's eyes followed the fall of the gun with a satisfied smirk, and that was his last mistake, before he could look again at me I moved forward my right hand, where I was holding a small blade (it was actually a letter opener, commissioned by Howard many years prior... it was shaped like a medieval sword, and quite sharp...). Stane had been so busy looking at the gun in my left hand, he never thought to wonder about my right one (or about just how ridiculous it was for a right handed person to be holding a gun, or any weapon at all, in her non-dominant hand...). I didn't even need to think about it, I just flicked my wrist and let the blade fly, it spun in such a way that it nicked the side of Stane's palm, beneath his thumb, before opening a shallow but long cut down his forearm.

"Bitch!" He barked at me. "I will kill you! You and your fucking father both! I swear I..."

I never got to hear what he swore, for he collapsed right then, his head bleeding.

It turned out I'd ended up being as much a distraction as the gun in my hand, the temporary paralysis had passed without Stane noticing, and then dad decided to attack him with the closest thing at hand, which ended being the very briefcase Stane had been carrying, with the intention of placing the arc-reactor inside. For that reason it was reinforced, hard enough it had probably cracked Stane's skull upon contact. As shocked as I was by it, I couldn't say I regretted the likely death of Obadiah Stane. He was a bad man, and even his death would never be able to pay for all the hurt he'd caused us all, with his attempts against my dad's life, with mom's death; but at least with him gone we'd know it was one less risk for us all, one less worry. And I would be sending everything Blue and Taser had gotten for me to the right people to make sure everyone who'd ever been in league with him would pay for their own crimes.

"Princess...?" Dad was another who liked to call me that. "Are you alright?"

I didn't allow him to say anymore, in seconds I'd rushed to him, leapt straight over the back of the couch and to his side, where I proceeded to embrace him as tightly as possible.

"Oh stars I was so afraid for you..." I began babbling, and didn't even care. "When FRI said JARVIS was down, and you were in danger... and after everything I'd just discovered Stane had done, or ordered done, I just..."

"What did you find out?" Dad asked, confused. "How did you find out?"

"I have a couple of friends, hackers." I gave him the short version. "Asked them to go as deep as possible, get me anything they could on Stane."

"Why?" Dad didn't understand.

"The way he acted when you went missing, and even before that..." I wasn't sure how to explain it, after all, at the start it had been more instinct than any actual knowledge that spurred me. "I know he's your godfather, and that you loved him but... I don't know. All along I couldn't help but feel like there's something... not right about him. For the longest time I didn't do or say anything because, well, like I said, you loved him, and I couldn't find a reason for my feelings. Even when he fought to keep SI in weapons only, that wasn't a reason to believe he was a bad person. And then Afghanistan... and he seemed to care more about having more weapons done and shipped out than about getting you back. He was all for calling off your search after the first month..."

"That's why you took the place of Acting CEO..." Dad finished, nodding mostly to himself. "I'd wondered. You never cared for such position, even insisted that it wouldn't be right since you had nothing to offer... I knew you were wrong about that but chose not to insist, it was always your choice after all..." He shook his head. "A part of me wishes you'd come to me with your fears, your suspicions, another knows that you had your reasons not to do it. We haven't been family for long, and you probably don't trust me..."

"But I do trust you!" I interrupted, unable to allow him to misunderstand something so important. "I trust you, and I love you dad. You're my dad, in every way that counts. And it's because of that, that I didn't tell you. Because if I was wrong... if I was wrong I would have been the one to hurt you, and I couldn't stand that!"

"Oh sweetheart..." He held me tightly against him. "You will always come first in my life, always." He chuckled a bit. "You know, it's crazy because, I never imagined myself having kids. Aside from thinking I'd probably be awful at it. And even when your mom and I made the plan, I never thought it would actually happen, it was supposed to be a last-resource, the thing you plan but never actually do, you know? And then she was gone... and I'm so sorry about that, my girl, that you lost her because of me..."

"It wasn't because of you." I cut him off. "It wasn't. It was Stane's fault she died, his and whoever it was he hired to shoot that bullet. Do you think I wouldn't have grieved if you'd been the one to die that day? You might not have been my dad yet then, but I cared about you, I've cared about you since the very day you took us in, and that's never gonna chance. Even if tomorrow you took the Stark name from me..."

"Never." He was the one interrupting me then. "You are a Stark now, and for as long as you wish to be one, darling."

"The rest of my life, does that work for you?" I asked in return.

He just smiled at me.

Things were still pretty crazy, of course. I had to show him the information Blue and Taser had gotten, then get it to the right people; see that those guilty of any crimes got justice. Then we would have to call Rhodey, Pepper and Happy, tell them what had happened and decide how we were going to handle things. No one outside family knew about the arc-reactor and what it did, for dad's safety of course; which meant we'd need to find another way to explain what had just happened with Stane...

 **xXx**

In the end, it wasn't that hard. We had the proof that Stane was the one to order the hit on dad, and that he'd been behind the one that ended with mom dead. It was easy enough to spin events so the man realized that he was close to being discovered; except he'd thought it was dad investigating him, rather than me. I had been warned by one of our security programs (it so was not the time to explain about JARVIS and FRIDAY) about something being off and had rushed to the sitting-room just in time to see Stane hovering threateningly above my dad. I'd thrown the letter-opener at him and managed to cut him by some 'stroke of luck', then dad had hit him in the head when Stane threatened to kill me.

There was enough truth in the story to make the telling easy; and we still managed to keep out the things we didn't want to make known. So it all worked out.

The others of course were near crazy with worry when they found out what happened (especially because we did tell them about the danger dad had been truly in, and they knew what it meant). Pepper had been almost hysterical, though the true shock with what dad did next, it was enough to make her stop in shock... he dropped to one knee before her:

"Virginia Potts..." He called in a very dramatic fashion. "My Pepper... light of my life, my one true love. I wish nothing more than to be by your side for the rest of my life, marry me?"

I was almost sure that whole declaration was the cheesiest thing I'd heard in my whole life; I knew most of the others agreed with me, though that did not stop Pepper from saying yes.

A couple of days later was my birthday, I was finally eighteen-years old. While I stepped down from Acting CEO of SI, I knew there was no way I could ever be just part of the PR Department, like I once planned, so instead I stayed as part of the Board and quasi-Vice president. No mention was made of my age; apparently in the previous three months I'd managed to prove I was capable enough (all a Stark, as some insisted on saying it... which was absolutely ridiculous considering the truth of my origins... but I did not mention that).

Pepper and Tony married the 2nd of April, a wedding that might have turned into the event of the decade... if anyone had known it was taking place. The only thought either of them gave to the fact that they were very public figures was one interview, to Christine Everhart, and they also passed on copies of a few pictures from the ceremony so she could use them. All in all it went well. Christine repaid the favor (she got a lot of money and publicity out of that interview) by handing over to Tony a file concerning some 'under the table' deals some people in SI had done with revolutionaries and even terrorists in other countries; including the Ten Rings.

Everyone knew about Stane's attempts against us, so there was no doubt who was responsible. What no one could have ever expected was when the weapons began disappearing, and when rumors started of a red and gold robot doing it...

Pepper and I knew what was going on, of course we did, but we turned a blind eye to it, instead focusing our efforts on what weapons we could 're-appropriate' legally. A new foundation was also created, the Eileen Grayson Foundation, to help all who might have been victims of Stane's and his cohorts' illegal deals.

At one point dad asked me if I had any interest in going back to school, finishing my Nursing Degree, but I just couldn't see myself doing that anymore, I'd grown used to my job and to the somewhat-hectic life we all had. Pepper was slowly but surely taking over as CEO (that was planned), I served as a sort of bridge between her and the leaders of each branch of SI: Safety (armors, alarms, etc.), Technology, Medical and dad's new baby: Energy (he had great plans about making the arc-reactors commercial). I was also the one to see after dad when he returned from one of his 'Iron Man' missions (it was what people were calling the suit, though generally the mere existence of it was still seen as something of an urban legend...); even if I wasn't a 'real' nurse, I knew enough and dad trusted me.

I never actually got into calling Pepper mother or anything. Mama was Mama (my birth-mother, Arianna Kinross-Salani) and Mom would always be Mom (Kathryn Salani/Eileen Grayson); while Pepper was Pepper. She was a dear friend, almost like an older sister to me, and both of us were fine with that.

We had a little scuffle with some top-secret agency called SHIELD or something like that. A man called Phil Coulson was very interested in 'debriefing' dad regarding what he might have seen in the caves where they kept him, and how he'd pretty much rescued himself. Then a Nick Fury made an appearance, he had the gall to try and hack JARVIS even! Though he hadn't expected FRIDAY to be there and kick him (figuratively) back. He said something about wanting dad to be a consultant for his organization but none of us were really listening, dad pretty much threw him out (we're not too forgiving of those who might see JARVIS and FRIDAY as less simply because they don't have bodies, and he had actually tried to hack JARVIS!).

I knew it wasn't exactly normal, treating what for most people were computer programs and robots as if they were people... but it was normal for us. And it wasn't even just JARVIS and FRIDAY (and JOCASTA, while she still mostly stayed in the background, and helped my hacker friends when needed, she definitely existed); there were also dad's 'robots' which functioned with the most basic AIs (much more basic than the other three): Dum-E, U and Butterfingers. They'd been greatly distressed (and I didn't even want to think how most people would find it insane to think of robots 'feeling' anything at all, much less distressed) when dad went missing, and then when Stane tried to kill him...

I wasn't exactly surprised when FRIDAY informed me that I'd just received a new encrypted file from my hacker friends. Apparently, after Fury's attempted home invasion Fri had decided that something needed to be done, and she herself had asked Blue and Taser to hack SHIELD with help from JOCASTA and find out what was going on. We got a hell of a lot more than I ever expected, so much I knew it'd take a while to sort it all. Though when I found the personal files connected to Howard Stark I wanted to scream. Who did Nick Fury thought he was to keep personal videos and letters from my dad! From our family!

I never knew what dad did with the things, I just passed them to him, after explaining how I'd gotten them. I think the only reason he didn't bury himself in a funk at the mere mention of his father was the realization that FRIDAY had grown enough to make her own choices, and they'd all been directed to keeping our family safe.

"That's my girl..." He called out-loud, voice full of pride.

There was a wordless hum through the speakers and I couldn't help but imagine FRIDAY blushing at the praise. It was ironic because she wasn't human, none of them were, and yet there were times when they'd just say or do something so absolute human... It was wondrous.

 **xXx**

It was a year after dad was kidnapped in Afghanistan that things got interesting again. Pepper and I (and Rhodey, more discreetly) had managed to legally recover enough SI weapons that dad didn't have to go on many of his own missions anymore. The sightings of 'Iron Man' had lessened enough that few people were talking about it anymore. Did not mean he didn't still go out, but it wasn't as often. That day in particular was important, because he'd decided to excise himself of one fear, once and for all. He'd gone back to Afghanistan. Back to the very caves where he was once kept captive. There was nothing there anymore, no Ten Rings, no weapons, but still, being there, by his own will, being able to leave whenever he chose to... it seemed to help him heal from the old trauma somehow.

Of course, the day couldn't end there. He happened to pick up on chatter of something going on nearby, in Gulmira of all places. And of course he had to help. It actually wasn't all that bad. He destroyed the cache of weapons that particular terrorist group kept, and the left the terrorists themselves, unarmed, to the 'tender mercies' of the people they'd long terrorized.

The problem was that, at some point during the little 'scuffle' a tank shot at him (A tank!). While the suit was strong enough to protect him, there had been some damage. Nothing too bad, but enough that dad needed help to get out of it, and treating some minor injuries. They were just bruises and minor cuts, but considering the fact that he was missing whole muscles and bones in his chest, it was necessary to keep an eye on any and all wounds he might have there.

I extracted the arc-reactor briefly to look it over, make sure it hadn't been damaged, and that dad wasn't bleeding inside, then put it back and began seeing to his injuries, pacified by the fact that they really were nothing to worry about. I was looking for some antiseptic to use on the only real cut, to make sure it wouldn't get infected or something, when I accidentally slapped something else off dad's table.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" I cried out, immediately reaching for it.

Once I had the object in my hand, that I saw what it was I was holding exactly... I froze. The object in question was a Stark Medical Scanner, meant to help people whose blood might be... poisoned. I'm sure I stopped breathing the moment it hit me.

"Dad?!" The word came from my mouth as I spun around automatically, toeing the edge of hysteria so fast I probably shocked everyone.

I lost myself for several seconds, possibly longer; suddenly I realized dad was holding me, even as I kept holding onto the scanner so tightly my knuckles were white.

"Hey, hey sweetheart... easy... it's alright..." He kept whispering against my hair. "Everything's just fine. I promise you. I'm alright..."

"You're dying..." I gasped.

The wordless exclamation let me know we were no longer alone; I didn't need to actually turn around to realize Pepper was there. I hadn't even noticed when she arrived.

"No, I'm not." Dad stated, completely serious, and while I didn't look up, something told me he was looking into Pepper's eyes as he said it. "I'm not. I promise you."

"But... but the scanner..." I finally pulled back, showing him what I was still holding.

"Oh, so that's why you reacted like that." He nodded. "Look..."

Ever so slowly he took the scanner from my hands, pinched his own finger and then pressed it to the signaled space. The small screen lit up, showing: "Blood Toxicity: 30%".

"Look." He insisted. "Look, I'm fine, see? Well, mostly fine, whatever."

"H... how?" I was seeing, yet I had trouble believing it.

"You, I think." Dad cocked his head to a side, thoughtfully. "At least I think it's you."

"I don't understand." I really didn't.

"Darling, this should be impossible." He signaled to the scanner. "Palladium is poisonous, I knew it from the very moment I created the first arc-reactor, back in that cave. It's why I created the scanners at all. And then I realized that the damage was much lower than it should have been. And not only that." He held me tightly by the arms as he added. "Whenever I use the suit for an extended period of time, the numbers go up and yet... if I re-check after you've seen to me, it's gone back down. You're the only one who treats me anymore, Ari, you and Pepper are the only ones who have touched me at all since I came back... aside from a few hugs from Rhodey, but that doesn't really count right now."

"But, but how?" I babbled. "I mean if I... if I can do this, shouldn't I know it?"

"Maybe you do, subconsciously at least." Pepper suggested, approaching us. "Ari, you're a very empathetic person, I've always known that. In fact, for the longest time I've wondered if there wasn't something more than human to that empathy?"

I blinked, having no idea at all what to say to that.

"You've never actually met my family, but my sister is a mutant." Pepper elaborated. "Nothing extraordinary, she can animate origami for short periods of time. Not a huge thing, but great for entertaining preschoolers, like her students. Her children are mutants as well, though only Thomas has manifested, he has the ability to bring what he draws out into the real world for short periods of time. He actually attends the Xavier Institute..." She turned towards her husband lovingly. "Tony himself recommended him."

I knew that Professor Charles Xavier, one of the (mostly unacknowledged) leaders of the mutant community was as good as dad's uncle, and that dad had been donating money in secret to the institute for many years. Even if he wasn't a mutant himself, he respected them greatly, SI was one of few companies who could be trusted to never discriminate a potential employee on race, religion, nationality, background (social, economical, political) or their genetic code. There were even lawyers specifically hired to help any SI employee who might be victim of a hate-crime under any of those areas.

"So what?" I went on, pulling myself back to the main topic. "You think I'm a mutant?"

"A gifted, the specifics are unimportant." Pepper shrugged. "Empathy, blessed healing, perhaps something else that somehow includes both?"

It came to me then, as clearly as if it were happening in that moment, it was myself and at the same time not, me in a body that did not look like my own, or at least not like the one I had in that moment, though some of the basics remained; I was wearing a beautiful lavender colored gown, kneeling beside a figure with waves of golden-blonde hair, stained crimson with blood; in fact, it wasn't just the hair, but the whole body. A part of me knew that there had been an attack and the person, the woman lying there had taken it to protect me, almost paying with her life. I cared for her, almost like a sister, I needed to do something to help her, to save her, and then it happened. Like some kind of metaphorical switch had been flipped inside me, suddenly there was an off-white/lilac-ish glow coming from my hands, and while the blood remained, the wounds beneath it ever so slowly closed.

I was pulled back to the present as dad laid a hand on my cheek:

"Ari...?" He called, worried.

"Not mutant, I don't, I don't think so..." I hesitated, having no idea how to even begin to explain what I'd just seen. "I... I just saw. It was like a memory, or a dream, or the memory of a dream...? I have no idea. I saw myself, only I looked nothing like myself, and there was someone, I think it was a friend, hurt, and I wanted so much to help her, to save her, I felt this huge need... and then I did. Her wounds healed by my will alone..."

I focused again on dad, on the cut still on his chest, the one I was going to put antiseptic on (how the whole thing had begun), instead I raised a hand and held it above the cut, less than half an inch from touching the skin, I closed my eyes and breathed out, concentrating, trying my best to bring back that energy I'd felt briefly in that memory/dream/vision/whatever...

Pepper's gasp made me open my eyes and then I saw it before me, the cut was gone, not even a scar left. And even the slight darkening of the skin around the arc-reactor had vanished, the skin looking fully healthy again (or as healthy as it could look with the reactor embedded in). In that moment I did not need the scanner, I knew instinctively that if dad were to use it again it would show less than 10% toxicity in his blood.

"Wow..." Dad was watching his own chest in awe. "That... princess that's incredible. You know, I think princess just isn't enough anymore... you're an angel..."

I couldn't help myself, I just blushed.

"So, as long as she keeps treating you, the palladium will not be dangerous to you?" Pepper wanted to clarify.

"Yes, though don't think I'm leaving this burden on you forever." Dad told me straight out. "I'm working on something. A new element that might work in place of the palladium. Got the basics from some of the stuff your gray-hats sent, from my father's stuff. I'm not sure yet how it all comes together, but I'm getting there."

I smiled. While I would have continued healing him for the rest of my life and never felt anything negative about it; I would have worried, about my gift failing one day, or it not being enough in the long run. It was good to know he was working on a more permanent solution.

I felt so absolutely happy in that moment, almost giddy... and then Pepper went and put the cherry on the cake: she was pregnant! I was going to be a big sister!

 **xXx**

The new element came eventually, and dad took great satisfaction in changing the core of the arc-reactor. I also took the chance to heal him as much as I was able (without fusing the reactor's casing to his own body). It was exhausting, and I had no doubt that some trace of poison would forever remain in his blood, but it was much better than it could have been.

In 2011, the Stark Expo happened. It was a huge event that would last for the whole year. And it wasn't even just about SI, while of course the company had a presence, taking the opportunity to launch all the new products for the different branches, as well as present Stark Energy and the first ever arc-reactor for commercial use (its usefulness showcased in the fact that the reactor was the one powering the expo, and would stay that way the whole year).

There was some trouble, of course, but that wasn't exactly surprising. With Pepper pregnant she couldn't exactly take over as CEO as dad wanted, so he had to remain on the post, and I helped him as much as I could. A plan was made for her to take her new position once my little brother or sister was six months. Dad also decided that someone should be groomed to take over the post of PA, working first with dad, but with the understanding that they'd eventually be working for Pepper. So we began looking for such a person.

It wasn't easy, so many people were interested in the post, but not all of them for the right reasons (most of them very much not for the right reasons). Some expected an easy job, others a position that would give them power, notoriety, there were even a few bimbos who wanted to seduce dad (which made Pepper extremely angry, though not at dad, she knew he'd never betray her), and then there was the one who tried to seduce me!

"This is insane!" I spat after that particular interview was over. "I mean, it's not like I have anything against such preferences, to each their own and all that. But they do know we're looking for an assistant and not a... a... an escort, right?"

I was honestly baffled by the whole thing. Then again, I hadn't been around when Pepper had first become dad's PA, had no idea what that might have been like.

"I'm actually not surprised." Pepper admitted with a sigh. "There are a few things you need to know for this to make sense to you, Arianna. First of all, in most places a PA is little more than a glorified secretary, or even a pretty accessory. It's not how things are supposed to be, but it's how it is in many places. Even those who truly work in their position, good work, none of them have the level of authority, the power I possess. I haven't yet been made CEO, but truth is that my voice and name carry almost as much power as your dad's, it has for a while. They know he trusts me, and so they in turn trust my orders, follow them. It's why I have no trouble being made CEO, I already have the authority, and when the day comes I'll have the title too. But that's not how things are in many other places. Also... well, you and I both know the kind of reputation Tony has, even if it's mostly undeserved. He might have been many things in his youth but you... you and your mom, your introduction into his life changed him, for good. Back before you were here I could have never imagined having more than a one-night stand with Tony and now... well, you know. I love him with all I am..."

"Just as much as he loves you." I assured her.

"I know." She nodded with a small smile.

The next day we had less aspirants, and thankfully none of them tried to seduce me again. Things got really interesting though, when the last hopeful for the day arrived:

"Good afternoon Miss Rushman, please take a seat and let us begin this interview." I told her, as I was the one conducting the interviews, with Pepper watching from a side.

In the end we hired her, she really was the one most capable. That did not stop me from bringing up her files from the bunch of SHIELD things we had and showing the to the others, though.

"Why did you hire her then?" Happy wanted to know.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" Dad suggested with a light shrug.

"Something like that." I shrugged as well. "Also, she and her employers must all be aware by now that she's the best candidate..."

"I wonder if that's a coincidence..." Pepper muttered suddenly.

We all froze, none of us had considered that possibility...

"JARVIS!" Dad called, a bit more strongly than necessary. "Research the matter."

"Yes sir." The AI agreed immediately.

"At this point it changes nothing." I pointed out. "They must know she's the best candidate, if we don't take her, it'll make us look suspicious. We don't know why she's here exactly. It might have to do with dad's refusal to work for that Fury guy..."

"It might be related to the Iron Man armor." Pepper added.

"That too." I nodded. "Or might have something to do with my mom."

We all knew that Eileen Grayson was but an alias, and that mom had worked for SHIELD. We had no way of knowing if Nick Fury, or anyone else in his organization knew the alias, who it (had) belonged to, but it was something to keep in mind.

"So, we keep an eye on her?" Happy summarized.

"We keep an eye on her." Dad and I agreed.

 **xXx**

It wasn't that hard, actually after a couple of weeks I began to wonder if Miss Rushman (or Agent Romanoff) even knew what it was she was supposed to be doing with us. She tried to seduce both dad and I (that was getting old really fast), then when that failed she did her best to become Pepper's friend (how she expected that to work after trying to seduce dad, I don't know). She used every opportunity to go to the mansion, tried to get into the private rooms, and dad's workshop, none of that worked, we didn't allow it. When I finally lost my patience was when she caught dad sparring with Happy and, pretending to want some lessons herself, went into the rink and took Happy down ridiculously easy.

I imagined she was trying to show her usefulness, or perhaps it was yet another attempt at seducing one of us. I had no idea. I was already on a short fuse, between Taser's message three weeks prior of something fishy going on where she was, right before something really freaky happened in New Mexico (and while we all had our feelers out, none of us had the slightest idea of what that had been, because we certainly did not believe the public story of a meteor and a super-strong storm). Taser had apparently been nearby for it, and claimed she couldn't say anything about it, I wondered if SHIELD was involved somehow... And it wasn't even just that, I hadn't had a good night sleep in almost a month, something had happened with my dream-companion, whoever he might be (if he was real at all...), I hadn't seen him at all for a good while, but it was more than that, because while I had gone back to not really remembering what I saw in my dreams, I remembered pain, grief, despair, standing on the edge of sanity and feeling like, regardless on what side I fell, none would be good. It was an awful feeling.

So yes, I had a short fuse, and seeing Miss Rushman humiliate Happy like that, it was more than I could stand in that moment. I didn't even realize what I was doing when I suddenly found myself standing inside the ring.

"Miss Arianna?" Happy asked, doubtful.

"It's fine Happy, I'll handle this." I assured him evenly.

I didn't have to look back to know that neither him nor Pepper liked what I was doing, dad did not say a word. Thankfully I was wearing comfortable clothes: dark jeans and a loose dark blouse with a floral print. I took off the short jacket I also wore, and the dark-leather boots, throwing them out of the ring.

"Are you sure about this, angel?" Dad asked quietly as he picked my things up.

"Completely." I answered.

"Miss Stark?" Rushman asked, a mask of confusion on her expression.

I didn't let that sway me, I could differentiate between the mask and the truth. What she'd done with Happy had been intentional, and it was not something I could let stand.

"It's alright Miss Rushman." I assured her with my most practice smile. "I'm sorry if this seems odd to you. It's just, well, you said you wanted to learn to better be able to protect yourself. As great a boxer as Happy is, we women fight differently. I'm sure you understand that."

"And you know how to fight?" She couldn't fully hide the disbelief.

"Mom taught me, before she died." I admitted, pushing down the grief and focusing just on what I needed to do right then.

It was actually fun. Natalie Rushman needed to hold back, obviously, least she reveal that she had the kind of training a secretary could never justify having. Me, on the other hand... I need not do such a thing. I knew I wasn't strong enough to take her down, but I was fast, and agile and very flexible, I used that to my advantage as I kept dancing around her. For the most part I managed to evade her own hits, while the ones of mine she received didn't seem to be too strong, not at first. Until suddenly she turned to slap me down and found herself unwillingly dropping on one knee.

"What...?" She asked, truly confused then.

"Jujitsu." I explained, getting on my feet from where I'd been crouching after slipping by her side and delivering my latest hit to the side of her knee. "It's kind of my specialty. Since I'm so small and don't have much mass, mom knew I needed to be able to do more damage with lesser hits than most people could deliver. With Jujitsu I attack nerve endings, articulations. The damage is not permanent, your physical condition is good enough I've no doubt you'll be back on your feet in but a few minutes." I smiled as innocently as I could at her. "If you wish I can even teach you some of those moves..."

I didn't tell her that the whole thing had been planned, the last hit might have taken her down, but it was the sum of all the others that was truly keeping her from standing again, they were compounding the damage. Even if she suspected what had happened she couldn't even complain about it, because she supposedly didn't know...

"If you can fight like that, why a bodyguard?" Rushman inquired, as she got comfortable on the ring's mat.

"First of all, Happy's my dad's bodyguard primarily, not mine." I pointed out. "Second, tell me Miss Rushman, if someone were to come after us, who do you think they'd focus on first, see as the biggest threat."

"The bodyguard." She finished in understanding.

"Precisely, they'd never expect people like us to be able to fight back." I really couldn't hold back the smirk anymore by that point. "And trust me Miss Rushman, I might defend myself, but my dad, he fights. I suppose it's part of being a Stark, being made of iron and all that, as grandfather used to say..."

"And Graysons?"

I didn't answer, pretended not to hear her as I left the room, boots in one hand, jacket in the other. If I was honest with myself, I had no idea what Graysons were supposed to be made of, yet that wasn't really important, Salanis on the other hand...

"Salanis are the breeze..." I murmured to myself. "I remember mom..."

 **xXx**

Dad went to find me that night. I was sitting on my balcony, pretty much perched on the railing, rather than sitting on the beautiful swing that had been put there just for me.

"What's wrong angel?" He asked very softly.

"I think I'm going crazy dad..." I admitted in the quietest murmur.

"That's impossible." He shot down the mere thought straight away.

"Because Starks don't go crazy?" I couldn't help the sarcasm.

"Because you're much too good to go crazy angel." He replied, still calm. "I found it odd, the way you reacted to Rushman. Though I was quite angry myself, and I know Happy would have taken a much worse blow to his pride and ability to do his duty if we hadn't all known the truth about our resident little spider... that doesn't explain why you came so close to losing control."

"I'm not sleeping." I finally admitted.

"I know." He revealed in return. "FRIDAY told JARVIS, they're both worried about you, as am I. I thought of doing something but didn't want to intrude in your privacy..."

"Thank you..." I laid my head on his shoulder. "I just... I don't know what's going on dad, I really don't. My dreams... it's like something's gone crazy inside my head... or maybe it's happening somewhere else entirely and something in my head is reacting to it... I honestly have no idea. All I know for sure is that something is very, very wrong..."

And even that I had no idea how to even begin to explain...

No more words were said, there was no chance, for a moment later we both saw a green flash coming from a corner of the backyard, the corner that served as my little rose-garden...

"JARV, scan that corner!" Dad called as he straightened up abruptly.

I wasn't sure what kind of instinct took me over, but my next action was instinctive. I swung over the railing and threw myself off the balcony and onto the nearest tree, moving through the thick branches with practiced ease before dropping soundlessly to the grass on the other side.

"Arianna!" Dad was calling to me, but I wasn't hearing him, not really.

All my focus was on my rose-garden and the figure that had just appeared there: a tall man with alabaster skin, raven-black hair, dressed in clothes that were covered by so much blood and grime it was impossible to discern their original color. I didn't even notice it when I began screaming, all I knew was there was pain, and after a few seconds I no longer knew if it was his or mine. Something was so very, very wrong...

 **xXx**

 _I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by mists, exactly as I had that one time back when I was six. Though unlike then, I began noticing some other things, like the lilac sleeveless, floor-length dress with a high waist I was wearing, sandals on my feet; the woman in the not-mirror before me also looked the same as back then, and I realized something else, how much she looked like I had in that odd vision/dream/memory from the day I discovered fully my healing gift. Like the previous time, I extended my hand forward, only to stop before I could touch anything at all._

" _Who are you?" I asked out-loud._

" _I am you." She answered, in a voice that sounded so much like my own it was almost eerie._

" _I don't understand." I told her quietly._

" _I am you, the piece of your soul you know is there but haven't fully acknowledged yet. The piece that holds the feelings and memories of a life long past..."_

" _A life... like past lives? Reincarnation?" I shook my head. "How can that be possible when I don't believe in such things?"_

" _The question should be how can you not believe in something you're a part of?"_

 _I knew the question was supposed to be rhetorical, and purposefully tricky. It didn't help._

" _You're mortal." She went on. "Things like reincarnation, death, eternity... they're big things, things not many mortals are capable of comprehending. Not because they're in any way less, but because they're things they know they don't need to worry about, they're beyond them..."_

" _Beyond them, not beyond us."_

 _She smiled, clearly pleased that I'd caught up that part._

" _I am here." She pressed on. "A part of you, have been all along. You've gotten glimpses thus far. Some you remember, some you don't."_

" _The dreams." I realized. "The healing... and him..."_

" _Well, He is his own person of course, but yes, the connection you share comes from me."_

" _He's connected to you."_

" _To us. I told you, I am you. We might not look exactly the same, but in the end we're still mirrors of one another. We're the same person, whatever our names might be, whatever our races, we're the same soul..."_

" _Why now?" I knew that was important somehow, it couldn't be a coincidence that aside that I had seen her but once, when I was six, and then she was suddenly back... "It's because of Him, isn't it? He's the reason."_

" _Yes, he's the reason." She nodded, pleased again. "He needs us, and for that to work you need to be all you can be, all you've always been inside, and that includes me. We need to be one, or this won't work..."_

 _There was no doubt in me as I answered: "What do I need to do?"_

" _You know the answer to that question."_

 _And I did, I realized it but a moment later, there was no hesitation as I extending my hand fully, I could feel the slightest brush of fingers against mine, and then she was gone, or we both were. The mists swallowed me, and with that hundreds of feelings, memories, they were all there, and as overwhelming as it all seemed, I somehow managed to take it all in, without drowning in them._

I woke up to find myself laying in my bed. That wasn't surprising, nor was the fact that dad was sitting on an armchair at the foot of my bed. No, the real surprise was realizing I wasn't alone on my bed. There was someone beside me, his hand entwined in mine, and I didn't even need to see him to know exactly who it was:

"Loki..."

* * *

As always, full-sized cover and a set of wallpapers can be found in my DeviantArt account (I go by Princess-Lalaith there). Hope you liked this! See ya in two weeks!


	2. Wife & Mother

This is where the changes become most obvious, there is no turning back!

Some of the characters are a bit (or a lot) OOC... that's more or less on purpose, keep in mind that changes are like ripples. It all started with Sebastian's death, and it's just growing from there, and every little change brings up others in turn, decisions that were never made in other timelines. That's why I love AUs... so many whole new worlds to play with!

(I really hope you'll like the insanity my mind came up with)

* * *

 **Wife of Magic, Mother of Chaos and Light**

I loved with all my heart, without reservation and absolute devotion.

June was a very good month for the Stark Expo, SI in general, and our family in particular. On the latter, Aylen Margaret Potts-Stark was born the first week of the month, which was great cause for delight for us all. There was a thing with the Board and the Stark lawyers, some of them bringing back up the matter of me being an 'illegitimate' Stark, and therefore somehow unfit to be dad's heiress... I'd never cared for inheriting the company, so in the end I convinced dad to make Aylen his heiress, with me put down as executor in case something happened to both him and Pepper before Aylen reached her majority.

On the rest, we got a lot of people joining the Expo, many of them either joining the company, or at least sponsored by us. Miss Rushman left us, supposedly due to some sudden family emergency that made it absolutely necessary for her to leave the country for an indeterminate amount of time. We of course wished her the best, she was then gone and we hired a new PA a week later; her name: Darcy Lewis.

That was also the month when I went public with my engagement, during a charity ball for the Eileen Grayson foundation. As far as the public was concerned my fiancé: Luka Hvedrungr, was an English immigrant of Scandinavian descent with degrees in Sociology, Development and Law. We'd been pen-pals for years, since we shared one major and many more interests. He'd moved to the States looking for something new when working in an office in London became too boring for him. And then we'd met in person (he hadn't know who I was since I always signed my letters with a pen-name). We'd been in love with each other for years, but hadn't been sure it'd get us anywhere; and upon meeting we'd realized how serious we really were about one another. And so we'd become engaged.

The truth was a whole other thing, of course, but the public simply did not need to know that Luka Hvedrungr was in reality Loki, God of Mischief and the second Prince of Asgard; that we'd been husband and wife in another life (another life of mine, still the same one for him) and had decided to practically continue where we'd left off. It was also probably a good thing dad trusted me so much, because I couldn't imagine something that would have served as incontrovertible proof of that particular story of ours.

One thing I couldn't help but think whenever I looked at him the first week or so after we woke up in my bed, holding hands, had been how little he looked like the Loki I remembered from a lifetime prior. Apparently dad and the others had rushed to us at my screaming (screams caused by our soul-bond activating for the first time and me being hit by all the pain Loki had been in at the time, pain caused by being under near constant torture for nearly a month). My family had done their best to help Loki, which somehow included cutting off almost all his hair when they decided no amount of washing would be enough to get out all the dirt, ash, blood and grime in it. At some point they'd also realized that we were both restless, unless we were in contact with each other, so they'd laid us side by side on my queen bed, our hands had intertwined on instinct.

Once Loki was healed enough to move without too much pain, to sit up and talk, we all had a quite serious conversation: We were still in my room, on my bed, sitting side by side. We'd also both showered and Loki was left wearing one of dad's old sweatshirts and a pair of dark-gray sweatpants I thought might have belonged to Rhodey (dad's would have been too short on him). I was wearing a simple pale-green short and cami set, with my off-white robe with a jacaranda tree in the back, on top for modesty's sake. We were also holding hands (it wasn't even a conscious decision, just something we did automatically the moment we were side by side again).

"So, let me see if I understand this." Rhodey stated, once we were done with the story-telling. "You," he signaled to my love. "Are Loki, as in the actual Loki, God of Mischief, Magic, Lies, Chaos, and whatever else. Not quite like the Norse Mythology we know, but with just enough of is to give us all a headache." He shook his head before turning to me. "While you are the, what? Reincarnation? Yes, that, the reincarnation of an honest-to-god princess of some other world, as well as his wife, mother of his child, etcetera, etcetera." He let out a breath. "You died, were reborn here and now you've found each other again... oh yes, and you're bound together. Which is why Ari has been having awful nightmares and night-terrors over the last month, and the night you arrived she screamed like someone was killing her, nearly giving Tones a heart attack!"

My match and I seemed to almost be taking turns to look down and blush in embarrassment, and to tighten our hold on the other's hand in a show of support. We didn't deny anything as, while I did think Rhodey was exaggerating some things just a bit, none of it was really a lie.

"That is correct, in general terms." Loki murmured quietly. "I understand that you never asked for this. Also, having me here might draw the wrong kind of attention towards you all. Which is why, if you ask me to, I'll leave tomorrow."

"You would leave Arianna?" Pepper asked in disbelief.

My beloved didn't dare answer that, but I wasn't about to allow any misunderstandings:

"No Pep, if that was necessary I'd be leaving with him tomorrow." I clarified. "You... I know you cannot understand this, what we've been through. What these memories of a past life mean to me, to us both. We've been pulled apart once, by force, it's not happening again, neither of us will allow it. We're a match, and together we'll stay."

"And here." Dad spoke for the first time since we'd all come together again after the meal and shower. He looked straight at me as he spoke. "You're my daughter Ari, I promised your mom, but more importantly, I promised you and myself that I'd be your family, that any home of mine would be your home for as long as you wanted it to be. I'm not taking that back. We might not have exactly planned this angel, but family remains family in good times and bad, right? And this isn't even a bad time, just a bit freaky and..."

And dad was babbling, something he did when nervous. I didn't care. I didn't allow it to continue for long either, as I practically jumped off the bed and straight into his arms.

"Love you daddy..." I whispered straight into his arms.

The way his arms tightened around me confirmed that that was the first time I'd said those words to him. So long I'd been hung up on the fact that we weren't really father and daughter, that it was all a lie, nothing more than a stratagem to keep me safe from those who might try to hurt me because of who my mom once was... I'd failed to realize that blood mattered very little where true families were concerned. We were family by choice, and that was enough.

The next morning Luka Serrure Hvedrungr was created...

'Luka' had more or less been introduced to the world in May, when Ivan Vanko seemed to return from obscurity to file a lawsuit against SI regarding the proprietary rights to the arc-reactor; because apparently his father had been working with Howard Stark when they came up with the original design, and so the son insisted that he had a right to it. He'd even proven it by showing that he'd been able to create one as well (it was cruder than dad's, but it was still compact, and worked... which no one else, not even the people working for Stane, had managed).

The case had been getting more than a bit hairy, until some old videos were revealed, particularly one showing Vanko Sr. stealing Howard's plans for the reactor. All in all the files revealed that while he'd been involved in the idea of the arc-reactor, the man hadn't done anything regarding the design or the theory behind it. Vanko Jr.'s achievements were therefore irrelevant; while he had some ability, he'd done it all working from plans stolen from Howard Stark.

The information that allowed us to win that case had been brought to use by none other than Darcy who, as we later learned, was in fact none other than TaserQueen!

The only real problem we had that particular month came from Justin Hammer. Apparently at some point the man got it into his head that he could replicate the Iron Man armor (and no, neither he, nor SHIELD, nor anyone else in the world knew yet that dad was Iron Man). It had been an absolute disaster and people might have ended dead if it hadn't been for a little magic from my love; which we later on explained as a prototype EMP device, something that created an EMP wave strong enough to potentially shut off anything in a half mile radius or so. Of course that meant that dad disappeared into his workshop until he'd created the device, just in case any of the authorities asked to see it (and to eventually add it to the SI catalogue).

We got yet another visit from SHIELD then, or rather dad did. His response was the same one as the first time. Except in that occasion it was Pepper who went and pretty much threw them out of the mansion when they tried to insist. She really was dad's perfect match. The unexpected part, was when Fury took a detour on his way out, and went looking for me...

"So you are Stark's daughter..."

I'd sensed him coming long before he reached me, standing at the top of the stairs leading to our private beach; usually I preferred relaxing among my roses, but it didn't feel right, allowing Fury anywhere near them.

"Arianna Stark." I gave him the short version of my name. "Cannot say it's nice to meet you."

"Are you that hostile to people you don't know?" He asked, sounding half-curious, half-annoyed.

"I know that you're a man who sees people as pieces in a game." I stated as eloquently as I could. "You want my dad to be one of your pieces, and have little care for what you might harm, who you might hurt in the process, including any and every member of my family. That's really all I need to know. A man who sees people as things is not a man worth anything in my book." My eyes narrowed at him. "I don't like you Mr. Fury, it's unlikely I ever will..."

"I suppose you are, indeed, Katharine's child..." He murmured, and his tone was so completely changed I had no idea what to say to that, except:

"Her name was Eileen Grayson."

"Perhaps." He looked away, to the sea. "She had many names."

"I know." I contemplated the wisdom of my choice before adding. "I know she worked for the government, with SHIELD even."

"You are in possession of very dangerous information..."

"Necessary, when it's the enemies she made then that threaten us both." I answered stiffly. "That are responsible for my losing her."

That wasn't true, of course, and I knew it. But I couldn't exactly mention my birth-father, so instead I held onto the original belief dad and I'd had about those enemies being behind mom's assassination. Besides, it wasn't like I was about to trust family secrets to Nicholas Fury of all people! She might have known mom once, but that still have her no right...

"If I'd known you were in danger... if I'd known you even existed..." There was something in his tone, it froze me.

I moved automatically, avoiding his touch, of more precisely the device in his hand.

"What the hell?!" I demanded, harsher than entirely necessary.

I didn't even think about it, as I plucked the small device off his hand. It was one of our (SI's) medical scanners. Only that one wasn't meant for blood toxicity, but something much more simple, and entirely more shocking...

"Paternity test?!" My voice might have gone through an octave (or two) at that. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

I could sense my beloved appearing just out of sight, on the beach and rushing up the steps, however my thoughts were pulled away from that, and from him, with the next words to come out of Fury's mouth:

"You might not know this, but Katharine... Eileen... she was my wife."

The rest of the conversation didn't really register with me. I blacked out at some point and from what I later learned, my match got there just in time to catch me before I hit the ground. Fury was sent away, though not before explanations were demanded.

So apparently mom had worked for SHIELD for about ten years or so (second half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s). The first mission she'd been involved in, had been an undercover one, in Egypt, her partner? None other than Nicholas Fury. Their other teammate: Shannon Carter, had been their contact with SHIELD HQs and mostly stayed away. There had been some kind of torrid romance thing, and a wedding ceremony that wasn't really legal, but it mattered for them. Which made the whole situation all the more confusing because mom had never told me about it! The most she'd ever said about Fury was that they'd worked together.

Apparently she'd left with little explanation, other than citing family. Back then it'd been Fury's belief that she meant her brother, the widower with a child. But after finding out about me, about my mom, he'd come to believe that mom had lied to him. She hadn't, of course, but I couldn't explain the truth to him. Wasn't sure I should anyway, there had to be a reason why mom hadn't told me about him. Perhaps the same reason why she chose to walk away?

So that was why Fury had tried to use the scanner on me. He was convinced that mom had lied to him, that she'd had me in secret and had chosen to pass me as Tony Stark's child for whatever the reason. He was convinced that he was my dad... I knew the truth of course, but it was one I could never allow him, I did not trust him not to use it for his own benefit, even if in ways that might end up hurting someone in my family. So we let him walk away, keep believing the lies we'd spun. And life went on.

Loki and I married before the end of the summer, and on March 20th of 2012 our beloved daughter was born...

It... She took us by surprise. Which was one of the reasons why we decided I should have the baby home (which, by that point, was Stark Tower in NY, we'd moved there in January, less than a fortnight after the end of the StarkExpo). The main reason for the choice though, was the fact that my beloved was Jotun, even if he hid it behind beautifully tanned skin, sun-bleached hair and bright jade-green eyes; and I, while I looked no different physically from what I had all along, I knew I was changing, could feel it inside me. It became especially obvious when I gained the ability to channel Loki's magic, but that was just the most obvious aspect. There were other things: like the lightness of my steps, my near-inhuman agility and flexibility, I was lighter than it should have been possible even with my size, and the fact that I needed less sleep than I ever expected (without being a genius insomniac like dad, who only slept when he managed to quiet his mind enough for it to let him rest).

So, we knew the baby was quite probably going to be different. It was why I'd never actually gone to an OBGYN either. It wasn't like it was necessary either, Loki was quite capable of using his magic to check-up on our daughter. A daughter... I knew she'd be so from the moment I knew I was pregnant, both my Maverick and I'd dreamt her (or a grown version of her). The name Rose was never in any doubt, she was our Rose, our beloved baby, who we'd lost once. The last piece of our past, our last regret...

The moment Rose opened her eyes to the world I knew having her at home had been the right choice: her hair was red, a lighter, more vibrant shade than mine (though I knew it'd darken in the coming years, until it would be a shade or two darker than my own), her skin was rosy and her eyes... her eyes were the most dazzling mix of red, orange and black and I could almost imagine a live-flame dancing in their center (much like we'd once seen the vision of her grown self dancing a midst fire...).

And then the next surprise came, in the form of none other than our firstborn daughter, the light of our lives: Helena...

"Cara amin (my light)..." I breathed out, not even noticing that I'd spoken in elvish.

"Nana (Mama)..." She whispered in return, climbing beside me on the bed and curling against my side, as if she were still a little girl and not a fully grown woman, technically older than me.

Loki had already used his magic to vanish the blood and afterbirth, changing the sheets when they couldn't be fully cleaned. Which left me laying on the bed in a simple nightgown, with Rose in my arms and Loki sitting half beside me, half behind, holding us both.

"I've missed you Nana." She murmured.

"You've kept an eye on me." I commented calmly.

It wasn't a question, I knew, for the mist-place I'd been in at least twice could be none other than Helheim, and there was no way my soul had been there and the Queen not known...

"I wanted so much to come to you, yet I knew I had to wait, wait until you were all ready." She commented, looking at me, then at her Ada (Papa) and then her eyes laid on her baby sister... "Pia nésa (little sister)..."

There was such feeling behind those two words, a near-reverence, I wasn't actually surprised that Helena was choosing quenya of all the elven dialects, the formality implied in the choice only served to reinforce her tone of voice. And then it came to me, what was in her voice: it was pure and simple adoration...

"Meril..." Helena breathed out the name I'd once chosen.

"Rose..." I clarified softly. "In this world, her name shall be Rose."

There was some kind of voice in the wind, a voice only I could hear... or at least that was how it seemed to me. I didn't even stop to think about it, I just took it and went with it:

"Rose Alfdis."

I didn't know it then, but Alfdis was Helena's own choice of name for her little sister, and a part of me had known... or perhaps it was Rose who had known, I had no idea. But that didn't matter. The choice had been made. And so Rose Alfdis Stark-Hvedrungr came into the world (and Helena Miriel Hvedrungr, Luka's little sister, joined our family as well).

 **xXx**

That summer we had an incredible experience. Helena had a house in the outskirts of Salem, Massachusetts, and my husband was almost giddy at the prospect of being in a place where there had once been so much magic. I, for my part, almost cringed at the knowledge of all the blood (figurative, of course) that stained the ground, the water, and all the surroundings, the blood of all those who'd died during the Inquisition, witches and non-witches alike.

What we weren't expecting was when we found threads of magic still there, living magic. Helena had told us about the 'Brothers of Ipswich' four men, heirs to their respective lines, four magical lines that had managed to escape from the killings in Salem and kept their heritage alive in secret. They carried a huge burden, for they possessed a form of magic that was very dark, so much that it consumed them, their life-energy, making them age faster than any human should. It was their curse, for their brand of magic, and one no one, not even Loki and I, had the power of breaking. Though Helena had kept an eye on them through the last few generations, and she believed that if they had their matches, the young men stood a chance at living longer, more plentiful lives, I could only hope so, for them and their loves. Perhaps one day our paths might cross, but that wasn't the day, Helena didn't believe them to be ready to know about us.

The threads we'd discovered did not belong to them, no, they pulled us in a different direction entirely. To a rather small town in a little island only connected to the mainland through a two way bridge, a place that wasn't even in any maps: New Salem...

We had no idea what we were going to find, but we followed the threads through the highway and then onto the main street: Crowhaven Road. There were houses in that street, twelve of them. Not all looked too-well maintained, but every single one carried a trace of magic, some stronger than others. We didn't actually stop the car (a rental we'd gotten in the airport in Boston, for the little getaway weekend).

"What do you know of this place?" My love asked our oldest daughter.

"Spell-weavers live here." Helena began with the obvious. "Or at least they did, a generation or so ago. Something happened in the nineties, a storm, or hurricane... only it wasn't completely natural, there was magic involved, I received about half a dozen souls that day, they were all witches with unfulfilled potential... they had all died in a fight against a dark being I couldn't really track. His power too different from mine to get a hold of it."

My eyes narrowed, that wasn't good. While I didn't think any human spell-weaver could ever have a power comparable to either of my loved ones, I still didn't like not knowing everything when going into a new situation, and I knew my Maverick would agree completely.

We didn't get the chance to talk things over, to back down, because right then the big wooden door of the old manor we'd parked before opened wide and a figure stepped out. She was a bit on the small side (though not quite as small as I), with fair skin, cornflower blue eyes and topaz-brown hair that seemed to have natural highlights in it; she was wearing a floor-length, square-necked, sleeveless dress that began off-white at the top and then eventually became blue; there was a long shawl like cloth wound around her back and elbows in the same mix of colors.

"Greetings." She called in a very formal tone of voice as she curtsied elegantly before us. "My name is Cassandra Blake, also known as Muse, one of the triumvirate that lead the Circle. It is an honor for us to receive the God of Magic, his Songstress and their daughters..."

I wasn't sure which shocked us more, the fact that the young woman before us (she had to be in her late teens, at most!) knew exactly who we were, including the fact that Helena was as much our daughter as Rose was; or all the young people looking at us from the door and windows of the house she'd just stepped out of, there was a lot more magic in Midgard than we could have imagined, even during my previous life!

So in the end our weekend didn't go as we'd originally planned it. We spent less time sequestered in Helena's old cabin, and more in New Salem, hanging out with the Secret Circle, getting to know them. We learned that they were, in fact, all in their late teens. They'd fought a great battle less than two years before, against their most terrible foe: Black John. The same man who'd been responsible for much of the death caused in the 17th century, the very same who'd been behind the storm/hurricane and the deaths of the 1990s. They were also heading for college in the Fall, all of them to Boston, though they were not all studying the same, they wanted to stay close to one another. They were more than just a coven, (the Circle, they called themselves), they were family in every way that counted, something we understood all too well.

We met two other covens in the following months, the Ipswich Brothers. They weren't much older than the Circle, though all four already in college, two were also engaged to women who were perfectly aware of their heritage and the risks therein. Then there was the Halliwell clan in San Francisco. The most shocking part with them wasn't their numbers, or the fact that the three sisters that served as heads of the family, and at least half of their children were effectively demon hunters (not actual demons, simply beings of other races); making sure humanity was safe; no, the true shock was realizing that they were but one line, part of a huge sub-society that existed all around the world, and we hadn't known. Even having realized before that the Spanish Inquisition had been less effective at eradicating magic than baseline humans believed, it was a lot to wrap our heads around. Most of them had magic so subtle even we couldn't sense it easily; on the plus side, that also meant they weren't much threat to us. Especially not to my match (whom every magic user kept referring to as the god of magic...).

We even paid a visit to the Xavier Institute at one point, my Maverick was absolutely fascinated by mutants, and the easy acceptance that his Jotun form found among them helped ease pains so deeply carved into his soul that even I hadn't fully been able to heal. Just that was enough to make me promise myself that if Charles (Uncle Charles, as he'd long since insisted I call him, much as dad did) or any of his children ever needed us, we'd be there.

SHIELD made such a scandal about the Hulk, about finding Captain America (certain friends of mine might have kept hacking their network ever so often... not like I complained), about the few gifted in their so-called Index... they had no idea about all the wonders hiding in plain sight in the world around, and they never would...

 **xXx**

In May of 2013 the skies of New York opened and an army of alien monsters poured out. It wasn't actually a surprise, not to us, my husband had warned us of what was coming since first arriving. After falling off the Rainbow Bridge and through the Void, Thanos had found him, tortured him (hence both my terrible nightmares, and the awful wounds he'd had upon arrival) for nearly a month (though time passed different in the Void), before my love had gathered enough energy to pull himself off the Void and back onto the branches of Yggdrasil. Then somehow our bond, old and mostly inactive as it was, had been enough to pull him to us, to me.

Originally his plan had been to go back, to play double-agent or something like that. But I refused to allow it. I'd had it with spies in my family. The loss of mom, even after the years that had passed, ached still; I wasn't willing to risk my match like that, especially with stakes that were so much higher. Thankfully, he saw things my way, eventually.

We couldn't exactly warn SHIELD about what was coming, but we did warn the X-Men, the Fantastic Four (the leaders of both knew and respected dad enough to take the whole 'confidential source' when he used it as excuse not to explain where the information came from). Then Darcy had had the idea of putting the idea in the dark-web. Have it be seen as some conspiracy theory, or perhaps the ramblings of a precog. She repeated the process enough times for SHIELD to stop and take notice, for the Avengers Initiative to be activated... and something called Second Phase, which we all hated and did our best to boycott from a distance.

Fury and Hill both actually tried to get dad to agree to consult for the Initiative, but when it became obvious that all they wanted was access to his tech, probably weapons and had no interest in listening to his suggestions, he turned them down. Though in the end he did give them an extremely good deal for some of his tech because the mere thought of them going to Hammer was enough to make us all cringe.

There were other preparations on our end, of course. Dad had prioritized the construction of Stark Tower, so it'd be ready faster than originally planned. He also had a number of arc-reactors ready. Most were fixed into Stark buildings, powering them; others were in reserve, to be used in case of an emergency. And it hadn't ended there. Dad had created a special watch that folded out into a basic gauntlet, simple compared to the Iron Man armor, but enough for some defense. Pepper and I had gotten each a pair of bracelets that created energy fields, shields. All the pieces were made of the same alloy, a synthetic vibranium that dad had created, based on the same element that he'd created (rediscovered?) to put in place of the original palladium core. It was something only he could create, and so, it could also be used to track us if necessary.

My Maverick also did his best to help protect us. Using all the mithril he'd left in one of his subspace pockets he'd created a nightingale pendant for me, a pair of earrings for Pepper, delicate bracelets for both Aylen and Rose, and cuff-links for dad; all the pieces carried as much magic, as many protective spells as he and Helena could pour into them. Helena herself had a pendant of her own, in case of an emergency; at our insistence my love also began to use a pocket watch enchanted in the same manner, just in case.

That day we stood back and watched. Much as it went against our instincts, we knew we couldn't interfere. The world wasn't ready to find out the truth about Iron Man, much less about my love and I, about our daughters; and we especially weren't allowing SHIELD to have that kind of information. No way.

In the end we couldn't just do nothing, not completely. We got the idea when JARVIS informed us about the young man in bright red and blue spandex swinging around like a human-sized spider, using his abilities to keep the Leviathans as contained and away from most civilians as possible. So we followed his lead. There was just enough of a mess that most people wouldn't think much of us, and if they did they'd probably think us to be nothing more than mutants, perhaps even some of the X-Men.

The moment the battle was over (Black Widow had closed the portal, and from the safety of Stark Mansion in Upstate New York TaserQueen had used her own talents to disarm a nuclear missile the WSC had been intent on sending to Manhattan), dad already had another project. He was going to find the one calling himself Spider-Man and offer him help, at the very least a better suit, spandex just wasn't enough protection with the dangers he was likely to face.

We didn't know it back then, but Spider-Man (Peter Parker, as we'd eventually learn his name to be) ended being but the first hero we'd come to help, and also the first to join us as we, ever so slowly, began forming a team of our own. A team of those who wanted to help in any way they could (protect the innocent, bring justice where needed, keep the peace...), but had no interest in being seen as heroes by the people (bunch of sheep who were as likely to hail us all as heroes or call a public lynching upon us, depending on the day and their mood), a family bound by more than blood or names.

 **xXx**

In December things got messy. Aldrich Killian, Maya Hansen, their creation (which they called Extremis), a conspiracy in the government that went all the way to the Vice-president, and a mess that almost cost both Happy and Pepper their lives. I wanted to help, but dad and Loki had pretty much packed me into the jet with both Rose and Aylen the moment things began going downhill, and I knew I needed to keep the girls safe, so in the end I relented. Didn't make it any easier when things began happening, when our home in Malibu was literally blown into pieces, dad was reported missing and possibly dead, Happy ended in the hospital and Pepper kidnapped. Of course it helped when dad and Loki got in on the action and made all those responsible learn why it was a bad idea to mess with a Stark, or the family of one.

The one truly ridiculous thing of the whole debacle was when Iron Man was repeatedly seen around, helping dad... and even after it was all said and done, no one thought to connect one to the other. Rhodey did find out the truth. He kept the secret though, of course he did, he was family too, in many ways. All the important ones.

The most sobering part was Extremis. There was no way to take it out of Pepper, once it'd bonded to her. She was so strong... became part of the 2% to survive the injection Killian gave her. But once the serum had become part of her, it couldn't be taken out again. My love promised to teach her to control it; we all helped make her see that being different wasn't a bad thing, and it could even be good, considering the dangers we all tended to be in...

And then dad went and got himself injected with Extremis too. Right after convincing my love to use his magic to take out the pieces of shrapnel. It was something that could be done, but even all my healing could have never been enough to heal the damage; and we knew that at least two of the pieces were keeping dad from bleeding out internally. However, with Extremis in the picture it was possible for dad to heal himself.

It was a gamble, and one Pepper probably would have never allowed had she known about it. I myself hated it, once I learned about it, but could understand why my husband had agreed to help dad: he'd known dad would find a way to go through with it no matter what, and he respect dad's choices, reckless as they might be sometimes. At least things ended well on that front.

 **xXx**

There were some amazing times, and other not-so-amazing ones. The important part was that we were happy. I was Arianna Stark-Hvedrungr, daughter of Anthony Stark, big sister to Aylen Potts-Stark, wife of Luka Hvedrungr, mother of Rose (and Helena) Stark-Hvedrungr; with an extended family that included a lot of people (Pepper Potts-Stark, Harold 'Happy' Hogan, James 'Rhodey' Rhodes, Darcy Lewis, Dr. Helen Cho, Peter Parker and his aunt, Gwen Stacy and her family, Harry Osborn, Mary Jane Watson...) and it just kept growing! In charge of PR in Stark Industries and, unknown to the world, the Nightingale, empath and blessed healer.

The first time we came in contact with the Wakandans was in early 2015. We (meaning my love, our daughters and I) were in south New Mexico, retrofitting a ranch-house dad had bought some years prior. The place was off radar (and did not appear on any maps), under my original name (that of Silbhé Salani) and buried under so much red-tape as to be virtually nonexistent as far as the bureaucracy was concerned. We were making the place into a safe-house, in case we ever needed to effectively disappear, lay low for a while, whatever.

What we certainly weren't expecting was when that very same night we got unwelcome visitors. Earlier that same day I'd used my elven affinity to connect with what few plants could be found in the ranch (we were in the middle of a desert, after all). That meant that when one of our unplanned guests placed a hand on the desert rose by the side of the house, I knew it.

Surprisingly enough my match did not wake up when I did and, thinking that the feeling I got might be a fluke, I decided to go check it out myself. So I pulled on my night-robe and slippers (I didn't really need them, even with the cold of the desert, but it was habit), and padded silently down the hall and then to the ground-floor.

I found two figures dressed in dark bodysuits that seemed to almost shine under the starlight slipping through the windows. They looked into each of the areas; the floor was open-plan, so there were few walls, and no actual doors, except for the one at the very end, the one that lead into the basement... I couldn't allow that so, without actually stopping to think about it I used magic to call my bow and arrows to me (created with a mix of the traditional mallorn wood from Alfheim, the same material my past-life's bow had been made of, with some gold-titanium alloy dad used for his suits to make it more resistant and mithril used on the runic patterns that had been used for the magic that made the bow unbreakable and respond only to me; and so the quiver of arrows refilled automatically).

I shot two arrows in quick succession. The first had a diamond tip, which allowed it to go through the wooden bar that worked to keep the door closed (once we were finished with retrofitting the place it'd have a biometric lock, but we hadn't gotten to that part yet), effectively nailing it to the wall. It would require someone with a strength considerably superior to a human (and some fancy moves) to open; or magic capable of working through Loki's. The second arrow landed on the floorboards and carried the equivalent of a flash grenade. I didn't expect it to be enough to take the two unknowns out, but at least to give me an advantage.

I didn't realize there was a third intruder until my enhanced senses caught on the sensation of the air breaking. My reaction was instinctual, as I spun around on one heel, at the same time as I allowed myself to drop to my knees and bend backwards to avoid the two long legs encased in a similar bodysuit to the first two.

I allowed my momentum to carry me as I twisted just slightly to release my legs from underneath me, throwing them out in a sweeping motion. My attacker was taken enough by surprise by this move that it made her stagger backwards, though she did not fall. A moment later I was on my knees again and going into some of my favored jujitsu moves. I managed to take her down then (I knew the person beneath the mask to be a woman, and not just by the curves on the bodysuit, I could sense it in her aura; and those of the other two as well).

It took some effort, but I managed to move just fast enough to pinch her in the neck and knock her out before she could recover from the fall and attack me again.

I'd barely stood again when I suddenly felt a gloved hand grabbing my throat, pressing slightly but purposefully on my trachea, while another hand pressed a thin blade against my flank, in an angle I knew would gut me if the move was completed. I froze physically, while my mind ran every which way, as I made plans and discarded them just as quickly. I couldn't teleport, for my assailant would be going with me; same applied with shadow-walking, though that would also mean killing her, as it was few who could survive in the shadow dimension; I wasn't too good at summoning the elements, which made that risky to both my opponent and myself (and possibly everyone else in the house); and couldn't think of another spell I could direct in a manner which did not end up with me skewered, half-strangled, or both.

"Who the hell are you?" The hissing voice of the woman holding me demanded in an accent I couldn't identify.

"Shouldn't you be introducing yourself first?" I just couldn't stop myself as I replied, I was my father's daughter in more ways than would be advisable, sometimes. "This is my house, you're the one invading here."

"So you're the thief then?" The hiss turned almost into a snarl.

I felt the blade going through my robe and thin night-clothes, pressing into my skin enough it would draw blood if I so much as breathed in.

There was a sudden yelp, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. My attacker immediately turned around, pulling me along, a half-strangled yelp escaping my lips as I went. And then we saw my husband, wearing nothing but his sleeping pants; the remaining intruder unconscious at his feet.

A wordless exclamation of rage came from the one restraining me, but I paid her no mind. Instead I looked straight at my match as I mouthed three words:

Let It Go...

He almost rolled his eyes at me, and while I couldn't actually smile in my position, I was sure he could sense my smile inside our bond (just like I sensed the roll of his eyes and his dramatic, long-suffering sigh). The words were in reference to the movie Frozen, of course we'd watched it, dad found it incredibly hilarious for some reason we couldn't quite fathom, he'd even jokingly called my husband 'Elsa' a couple of times, until my love retaliated by freezing his coffee before dad could so much as taste it. That seemed to be more than dad could take (either that or Pepper warned him off starting a prank war with the god of mischief of all people...), so that was the end of it. Still, my love knew what I meant.

The change was easy, fast, the woman still holding me by the neck had no idea what was coming until it was too late and the rush of frost hit us both. It wasn't bad enough to kill her, but still bad enough to make her feel like she'd been suddenly dropped in the arctic, or something like that. Me, being the match of a jotun had its advantages, while my core temperature went down, I was able to adapt to the change, which meant that I could still function. It was quite easy then to push the blade at my side away and pretty much step away from my attacker.

"The girls?" I asked my love softly, switching to Old Norse so as not to be understood by any of our uninvited guests.

"Helena's with Rose." He answered me promptly. "Just in case."

I nodded, then called my phone to my hand. I took a number of pictures of the three women, with and without masks, before calling on Friday.

"FRI." I spoke in English then. "I need you to run those pics through any and every database you can think of. Find out who they are, where they come from, and especially why they're here, everything you can."

We needed to know. Was it a hit? Something connected to the name Stark or Grayson? Or did someone somehow knew about the gifts any of us possessed? Or the truth about my beloved's identity? Though if it was a hit, why had they gone for the basement instead of the bedrooms? Could they possibly know what we'd just left there earlier? How when no one outside family even knew it existed?

Things definitely did not improve when FRIDAY informed that two of the women seemed to be ghosts, they did not exist in any of the databases my AI had access too (and both she and JARVIS had access to a lot more than most people would have liked...). The third was a bit better: her name was Nareema and... I couldn't help myself, I cursed, long and in at least half a dozen languages in quick succession.

"Nightingale...?" My husband asked softly, worried.

"She's Wakandan." I bit out. "More precisely, she's a royal bodyguard." I cursed again under my breath. "Something is really wrong here, Maverick. I need to call dad."

 **xXx**

Two days later we made our way to an abandoned airfield in Texas (secretly bought by my dad years prior under one of mom's old aliases). Helena had taken Rose to keep her safe, while my love had used his magic to keep the three Wakandan warrior-ladies in a haze, as if they were drugged or tranqued or something.

We were the first to arrive, though we weren't on our own for long. Two cars arrived less than five minutes later: the first was dad's red convertible, and he was the one driving it; the other one was a plain, black sedan with darkened windows (obviously a rental) three people stepped out of it: a man and two women, all tall and with the darkest skin I'd ever seen...

"Introductions." Dad called loudly, playing the part of the obnoxious rich man. "This good man here is T'Challa, crown prince of Wakanda; the two ladies with him are his bodyguards, two of the Dora Milaje, whose names I do not know." He shrugged, before turning towards them. "Your Highness, these are my daughter Arianna, and her husband: Luke." His brows narrowed as he added. "It was their ranch-house that your ninjas invaded two nights ago, my daughter that they almost killed..."

"They were there to recover stolen property, nothing more..." Prince T'Challa said in what was probably supposed to be a calming tone.

"We're not thieves!" My Maverick stated in an even tone.

I was the first to notice something was off. I didn't even think about it, I didn't have my bow with me and wasn't reckless enough to summon it in such company, though I wasn't defenseless either. A twist of my wrist allowed a thin dagger to drop from inside my sleeve, into my hand, and then I threw my arm out, releasing the blade in the exact moment... no one even got the chance to look at me, to ask what I was doing, the yelp gave them the answer.

As we discovered, there had been a third lady in the black car, dressed in the same kind of catsuit as the three that had invaded the ranch. She'd used our apparent distraction to try and get to the three in the back of our van, probably intending to release them. But I'd seen her in time. The blade went through her hand. Painful, though no permanent damage.

"Is that how things are going to go then?" Dad asked, steel in his tone.

Bracelets glinted in his wrists, and I knew he was ready to call the Iron Man armor to him at any moment. Even if it meant revealing his secret to those present, he'd do it to protect us.

"No, it's not." T'Challa gave a step forward. "Dr. Stark, you must know we were not aware the property in New Mexico belong to you, or your daughter."

"What were you doing there?" I asked, cocking my head to a side. "You're a prince, a future King what could possibly push you into doing some b&e, or ordering it for that matter? You must have known all the ways things could have gone wrong. Do you honestly believed thieves wouldn't have been pursued? Whether the property had been ours or not? And what of the attack, if your warriors had hurt me? Or my husband? Or my daughters?!"

I actually lost it, just a little bit, at that point. Still, apparently the Wakandans were either affected enough, or just weren't paying enough attention, for none of them seemed to notice the plural.

No platitudes of reassurances were offered, which was just fine by me; I wouldn't have believed them anyway.

"You know all about vibranium, of course you do." The Prince said instead. "It's our metal, our heritage; and yet twice now it has been stolen from us. Once by a man we believed to be an ally, a personal friend to my father even and..."

"And once by my father." Dad finished for him.

It wasn't actually like that, not exactly. Then again, we were all sure Howard Stark had never told anyone the full story. The public version was that his people had discovered vibranium in Africa, taken all they could find and brought it back to the States, where it had been used for a prototype shield that would eventually become Captain America's signature weapon. Back then the world hadn't known that a country called Wakanda existed, much less about their connection to the metal known as vibranium. What we did not know was if Howard Stark had learned of Wakanda back then, or if he'd somehow just been lucky enough to find the metal. Still, for the people of that country it probably amounted to the same, grandfather had taken something that wasn't his...

The other case was more recent, and not quite as well known, though we did know about it. Ulyssess Klaue was a man of Dutch origins, an arms-dealer; he was also the one who'd stolen a considerable amount of vibranium in the nineties and managed to get it out of Wakanda, though he almost died in the process.

"I'm sure we all know where the vibranium good-old dad got is." Dad deadpanned. "It's not like the whole world hasn't seen the Capsicle throwing it around like a freaking frisbee." He shook his head before moving on. "Which means you're not talking about that. I knew Klaue once, more than a decade ago. He wanted to buy weapons from me, weapons he'd later re-sell to some of his more 'interesting' clients. I wasn't interested in the slightest. He did offer some of the vibranium in exchange... I didn't believe in trading with stolen goods." He let out a breath. "Stane tried to make a deal with him years later, but Klaue apparently wasn't interested." He looked straight at the prince as he added. "I have no idea what brought you to my daughter's ranch, but know this. I do not have your vibranium. I have no interest in it."

"Everyone is interested in vibranium!" One of the women by the prince hissed.

"Indeed." Dad just couldn't seem to be able to help himself, he smirked. "I didn't say I wasn't. I said I wasn't interested in yours."

"What is that supposed to mean?" All Wakandans seemed to react to that.

"Years ago I sort-of discovered... re-discovered?" He waved a hand dismissively. "Dad studied the vibranium he got from you, was very interested in its composition, in the possibility of one day replicating it, synthetically. He didn't get very far with that idea; but then again I am not Howard Stark, and I have a lot more at my disposal than he did."

"You created synthetic vibranium..." Several of the women gasped practically in unison.

"It's not quite as strong as actual vibranium, but it's good enough." Dad shrugged in a self-deprecating manner.

"That's what's in that ranch-house." T'Challa breathed out in realization.

Dad just smiled, full of teeth, dangerous (I was sure he'd learned that particular smile from my beloved, when he was being particularly vicious).

"You have my unreserved apologies, Dr. Stark." The prince actually bowed slightly to my dad. "On behalf of the Dora Milaje. For any hurt, physical or mental they might have caused yourself, your daughter and her husband. I promise you, the Dora Milaje would have never hurt you, much less your daughter." He shook his head slightly. "I have to admit we acted precipitately. Seemed like a good idea when we planned it. For the first time in more than a decade we had what looked like a clue about the location of our stolen resource... we could have never imagined something like this happening."

"So I was right then!" Dad's smile seemed to almost split his face, he was delighted. "You can track vibranium... and metals similar enough to it."

"There are limitations, of course." T'Challa stated vaguely.

Of course they wouldn't tell us what the limitations were, but I could guess at least two: magic and the arc-reactor, which would explain how none of them seemed to have any idea about the pieces we each wore, or the rest of our family, or the small cachés we kept in Stark Mansion in NY, and the sub-levels of what had once been the Malibu mansion (the house itself was gone, but the sub-levels were still there). I was sure dad would be able to deduce a few more...

"You have trouble tracking it through other metals with opposite charge, don't you?" He asked, in an almost eager tone.

The Prince's eyes narrowed again.

"What makes you so sure about it?" He asked, evenly.

"That I'm almost sure I know where your metal is, and that would be the only reason why you haven't managed to track it with your own fancy tech." Dad quipped.

The expressions on the faces of all the Wakandans were priceless. I had a feeling that before it was all said and done we'd all be allies and who knows? Perhaps even friends, someday.

 **xXx**

It took just a few months but things to go a bit crazy yet again (though that one was not our fault, at all); when something called the Convergence took place. We traveled to London so Dad, Peter and Gwen could make tests and take samples to study; we had some very interesting few days until suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a battlefield.

"What the hell is going on?!" Harry demanded.

He was there too, with his fiancée, MJ, he'd insisted on seeing the trip as a little vacation, and even though he didn't really understand everything that was going on (and that had two of his closest friends acting like they'd just won a million bucks), or why them, my dad and husband, were so gone on all the testing, he'd wanted to be there; at least until veritable holes appeared in the fabric of space and creatures began coming out of them... and a black space-ship that was probably bigger than the freaking Big-Ben!

"Dark-elves..." Loki muttered in a scathing tone.

The memories of my old life informed me what dark-elves were, and a whole lot more.

"This is bad." I murmured as I realized the implications of what was going on. "Guys! We need to get out of here! Now!"

Of course it couldn't be that simple. Helena and I had each our little sisters in our arms (Dad was gathering samples, and Pepper was at some meeting for SI with Darcy). It got insane for a while, with dark elves popping in and out all around us, and not even just them, one time Mjolnir flew past me, so close I felt a slight pull on one of my bangs. On the plus side, Gwen and MJ had been with their respective superheroes enough that neither of them panicked; I could sense their fear, their tension, but they remained completely focused as they followed their respective matches.

Eventually we managed to get out of that mess, and no one except Dr. Foster's intern saw us, and he thought us nothing more than a bunch of civilians who'd become accidentally trapped in the middle of an inter-dimensional battle.

Dad of course was absolutely delighted for all the readings he managed to get, and even Gwen managed to bounce back the moment the science-babble began.

"So, still think this was an interesting vacation?" I couldn't help but ask Harry saucily.

"Well, at least I'm not falling asleep to one or more members of OsCorp's board droning on and on about stupid things." He drawled in return.

MJ just slapped him in the arm. It was obvious she, from all of us, had been the most terrified. Unlike Gwen, she'd never been in danger from a supervillain before, her life had never been on the line... in my opinion she had acquitted herself admirably. I also knew her fiancé was only saying that to add some levity to the situation. Usually dad would be the one to make the stupid jokes, but he was too busy going over all the information JARVIS had gathered.

Still, the sentiment wasn't wrong, there was never a boring moment when it came to us.

 **xXx**

The next people to join our patch-work, dysfunctional and more than a little insane family were the Banners. It actually started in a most unexpected manner: with Ms. Elizabeth Ross knocking at our door, a three-year-old dark-haired blue-gray eyed boy holding her hand and half hidden behind her dress pants.

Of course dad knew who Ms. Ross was: Doctor in Celullar Biology, daughter of the (psychotic in my opinion) General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross, former professor and scientist in Culver University, ex-girlfriend to one Dr. Bruce Banner, alias the Hulk... and apparently mother of his child as well.

The shocking part was learning that little Robbie Banner had inherited his dad's invulnerability; they'd discovered this when some insane maniac had put a bomb in a small park the mother-son pair frequented. We'd known about that event, months earlier in Virginia, several children had died, even more were terribly injured. The Maria Stark Foundation had sent relief teams and monetary aid, and my love and I had even managed to join them under glamours, I'd taken it upon myself to heal as many kids as I could before someone noticed something was going on. That part was never made public, apparently the doctors in the hospital had decided not to report it, they simply called it 'a miracle'.

Betty had been running since. Her son had been in the middle of the affected zone, the only one in that very area to have survived... he'd also made it out completely unscathed. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the wrong kind of people got interested in that fact, she'd packed a couple of bags and begun running. None of us knew for sure why she'd ended knocking at our door (figuratively, it was Stark Tower, and the doors weren't the kind you knocked on, but still), she never explained that part; though she obviously had known that we'd take both and her son in, no strings attached. What I'm sure even she wasn't expecting, was when dad got Dr. Banner to join us too.

The Hulk was technically on the Avengers' rooster, though he'd left NY (the States, really) after the Chitauri invasion, obviously not too keen on staying around. It took dad two days to find him, and one more to convince him to come back. He was still surprised when Robbie was introduced to him, though. It was a precious moment.

Dad made a point of offering both Banners jobs in SI, and Robbie a place in the Stark Daycare (a whole floor in the Tower was dedicated to that). The people there were the best, not just in child psychology and development, they'd also been screened to make sure they were accepting of every race, religion, and status (meaning human, mutant, meta, etc...). Aylen and Rose too spent at least half the day every day too, and we had no doubt that they were both gifted, they just hadn't manifested yet (though JARVIS, FRIDAY and the bots all agreed that they could sense Aylen's aura whenever she was around, which made us believe her gift would have something to do with technology).

All in all, 2015 was a good year, more insane than we were used to, but good nonetheless. Which of course meant that the next year just had to start with a bang.

 **xXx**

The 'bang' was Darcy discovering just a few days after my twenty-fourth birthday (less than a week, in fact) that a terrible, poisonous, multi-headed snake had made its nest in the very heart of SHIELD (and in every piece of it, really). It was shocking, heart-chilling, and enough to make dad let out a string of curses in every single language he'd ever learned (and considered my love and I had taken great pleasure in teaching him a few that weren't really known on Earth...).

We began working immediately, hatching plans, making preparations, looking for ways to chop down the needed heads of the snake, while keeping the good, loyal men and women safe from the mess that the first part would cause. None of us understood why, exactly, but we all had a sense of foreboding, an instinctive knowledge that time was short, and there was much that needed to be done before things went to hell.

When that happened, we still weren't exactly ready, but there was nothing that could be done about it. We'd done everything we could in the previous three months. Dad had called in every single favor he was owed (discreetly, of course); my match and I had taken multiple, secret trips around the globe, trying to make alliances, or resurrect old ones. We had magical friends across the States, of course, but we knew more help would be needed, a lot more. Thankfully the Halliwell Clan had connections, it helped a lot. There were old tribes of gifted who, while they didn't exactly know us, they had records of having met us in the past (during my life as Tinúviel), some even had still records of alliances, of debts owed...

The most shocking though, was finding the Halls in Cairo. Carter Hall, an Archaeology professor in the best university of Egypt, and his daughter Kendra, college senior and soon to graduate (also, as we'd eventually discover, she was promised to none other than Prince T'Challa... they were apparently a match). Carter was none other than the reincarnation of Kontar, an Egyptian prince (not the King, nor in any way liable to inherit the throne, but a royal nonetheless) from a thousand years prior; one of our dearest friends (and whose death, beside his beloved wife, Sharifa, my beloved and I had witnessed). It took a while to convince him we were who we claimed, but eventually we managed, and not only he helped us convince the Wakandans to help us, but he also put us in contact with another group of gifted: the 'retired' Justice Society of America (whom most believed to be nothing more than criminals, though they were in fact heroes, and always had been).

Six months after we first discovered something was very wrong with SHIELD, the shit hit the fan. It started with the news that Nick Fury had just been declared dead, sometime after midnight, the first week of August. By the time we were working on it, trying to discover if it was true or some kind of trick, another announcement went through all SHIELD servers (and was intercepted by us): Captain Steve Rogers and Agent Natasha Romanoff were considered rogue, hostile and being pursued by the STRIKE team, Considering that that particular team was more assassination than capture... it wasn't a good sign.

We gathered together the next morning, with videos of the shooting against Nick Fury, and a the one against Rogers, Romanoff, and some other man by the name of Samuel Wilson that had taken place the previous afternoon in the middle of D.C.

"There's no more time." Loki said what we were probably all thinking.

Helena wasn't with us today, ever since January she'd spent as much time with us as away. We didn't know everything that was going on, only that something huge had happened back then, which had almost caused her to lose her match. Her match... whom she hadn't met in his current life, though she'd seen him from a distance in the past. Even if they hadn't pronounced their vows in lifetimes, a trace of their bond still managed to endure, and it had been enough for her to sense the moment that his life nearly ended. Since then Helena had taken to spending time around him; she kept herself to the shadow dimension, watching him yet not letting him know she was there. She couldn't, it was against the rules.

My daughter was hurting so much... I'd actually offered to go find this man... I didn't even know who he was in his current life, she always referred to him as Stephanos. But he knew, and if she'd just tell me... I was willing to go to wherever he might be and find a reason to introduce myself. Since I was alive and all, the rules that kept her away did not apply to me; and once we'd been introduced I could find a reason for them to meet too... She hadn't taken me up on my offer yet, and I hadn't insisted too much, not while we were dealing with the mess of HYDRA-in-SHIELD.

"The way things are going in DC it won't be long before Rogers and Romanoff are either caught again, or killed..." Darcy began babbling a bit.

Because of course we knew they'd escaped. Even though that wasn't public knowledge in any way, Darcy wasn't the queen of hackers for nothing.

"We need to call all our contacts." Pepper stated, seriously. "Get them moving. Initiate 'Sword' protocol stat. If we're lucky we might be able to save most of the people who'll find themselves in the cross-hairs once these two monsters have it out."

The 'Sword' Protocol was a play of words dad and I'd made months earlier, and it consisted of a simple (though not exactly easy) plan. Our allies would be alerted, some were meant to make sure that whatever HYDRA Agents came out of the woodwork were stopped before they could do too much damage, others were meant to help get the SHIELD Agents out, especially those doing undercover work, doing dangerous missions; the ones who were likely to be in the most danger if worse came to worst.

And us... we would be staying right in Stark Tower, it was a bit less fortified than the mansion, but more central, and with all the work we were all doing we'd been staying there and more, since it was convenient, being in the same building that housed the company. It was less than an hour flight to DC in case we were needed; and in case of a real emergency we could get there even faster with a little magic.

"Sword Protocol Initiated." JARVIS and FRIDAY announced in unison.

We knew it'd be a matter of minutes before everything would be ready. So we just sat right there, in the living room, waiting. What we weren't expecting was when JOCASTA (the AI keeping all of Darcy's hacking completely secret from both SHIELD and HYDRA) blared an alarm.

"Shit!" Darcy cursed loudly as her fingers flew across her keyboard. "Jesus on a cracker!"

Usually we'd laugh at her choice of words when cussing; but right then we couldn't, we knew instinctively something was very wrong...

"I have no idea why I didn't find this before, the bastards kept the information too well hidden." She muttered under her breath, before saying, louder: "Project Insight, three helicarriers are being activated right now. They carry enough guns to start and end WWIII all on their own."

"Who's their target?" Several of us asked at the same time.

"Who isn't?!" Darcy snapped in return, never stopping in her frenetic typing.

"Hey, I know that project!" Dad called suddenly. "It's supposed to be used to stop the threats before they actually become such."

"Threats against whom?" The words were out of my mouth before I really thought about it.

It took no time at all for the others to catch up to my line of thought. Perhaps the original idea was to use those helicarriers to target terrorists on the rise, potential risks for the safety of the innocent people in our country, and others. But with HYDRA embedded in SHIELD...

"Abort!" Dad practically yelled. "We need to abort that project!"

"I know!" Darcy practically wailed, edging on hysterical. "I can't! No matter how hard I try, I cannot hack those helicarriers! I cannot stop them!"

My Maverick and I turned to look at each other instantly, and I knew we were thinking the same. Iron Man would never make it there in time, but we could. It was a huge risk, and we weren't even thinking about all the people who would be there, who might discover us, who might attack us, might die... and then something we could have never in a million years expected, happened:

Hard as it might be to admit, when Aylen first entered the room we didn't really notice her. She and Rose were supposed to be having a nap in their little game-room down the hall. And yet they went in and rushed straight to us.

"Aylen!" Dad and Pepper cried out at the same time.

Pepper made to rush towards her, but before she could so much as stand my hand was on her arm, stopping her. I didn't even know why I was doing it, all I knew was that Rose's eyes were shining in a mix of red, orange and black... her eyes hadn't looked that color since the day after her birth. I just knew there was a reason for that.

Then, instead of approaching her parents, Aylen went for Darcy, who had finally stopped typing and was looking at her screen as if the world had ended and we just hadn't noticed yet (and maybe, for all intents and purposes, it had). Darcy wasn't really looking at her, probably didn't really notice her there... until she began clicking. That was perhaps the part that confused us most. Aylen was no baby, she was five years old, and quite probably a genius (Pepper had refused to have her tested until it became absolutely necessary, not wanting that kind of burden on her, at times being a Stark could be enough); and besides that, we'd never heard her made such noises before. Then things got beyond strange, as Darcy's eyes widened almost comically and she began gesturing and making half-formed words, all the while looking between Aylen and the screen of her laptop time and again.

"What's going on?" Dad finally demanded.

"I believe the little miss is hacking SHIELD, Sir." JARVIS informed us in what I would actually call a deadpan tone.

"She's hacking...?!" Pepper couldn't even finish the sentence.

"I would almost say she's making my computer hack SHIELD." Darcy offered, finally able to string a full sentence again.

We never fully understood what happened that day, what my little sister did, even after a meeting with Professor Xavier and some of his colleagues confirmed dad's and Pepper's suspicion that Aylen was gifted, a technopath, to be precise (and some believed there might be more to her gift, it just hadn't manifested yet). It was like she somehow spoke a language that only machines could understand, a language that bypassed all protections, all firewalls; as if any and all technology felt compelled to follow her commands. It was what happened that day, what stopped those three helicarriers from taking off that fateful day. Aylen saved us that day, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and no one but us would ever know...

At the end of the day, there was just one more conversation that needed to take place; one between Dad and I:

"You saw the man who attacked first Fury and then Rogers and his friends." I said, it wasn't a question, and we both knew that.

"The Winter Soldier." Dad said stiffly.

The Winter Soldier... the man responsible for Sebastian Salani's death... and also for Howard and Maria Stark's... and so many more people we'd never be able to finish listing.

"You saw the results of the face recognition software." I murmured next.

"Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes..." He said the words with absolutely no inflection.

I said nothing more. The offer was on the table, my Maverick had made it the day before the two of us married: the moment we had a way of tracking the Winter Soldier, and we found it, my love would take care of the assassin himself. Avenge my biological father, dad's parents, and everyone else that might have suffered because of him; give us justice, closure, and make sure that no one else would ever suffer because of him.

"JOCASTA found this." Dad said for all answer.

What next came up on the holographic screen was something I could have happily spent the rest of my life without ever seeing. It was so bad my magic went out of control for a moment and it fried the screen, just so I wouldn't have to watch it anymore. Even that didn't stop me from having to rush to the nearest bathroom when the nausea simply proved to be too much.

"What's the plan now then?" I finally asked, once I'd washed my mouth.

After everything dad had gone through, in Afghanistan especially, I knew he'd never be able to see James Barnes as evil. No, the man had gone from being the soulless Winter Soldier to a prisoner of war who had been tortured, brainwashed and used for more than fifty years... perhaps by that point the answer to my question was obvious.

"We're going to get your hubby to find the Winter Soldier." He announced, conviction in his tone.

"And then?" I asked, suspecting that wasn't the important part.

"And then we're going to get Sgt. Barnes back." He finished.

Yeah, I just knew he was insane. Then again, so was I, because I really couldn't think of anything else we could do. It wouldn't be easy, but it was the right thing to do. And so we would.

 **xXx**

Of course it couldn't be as easy as that. Even with HYDRA falling into pieces (mostly thanks to all our allies), it wasn't easy to find the Winter Soldier. The man was obviously very well trained, and whatever might have changed, he certainly knew how to stay off the spotlight. And searching for him wasn't all we were doing. We were working (along with all our allies) on taking down what HYDRA cells still remained, and tracking down the staff the leader of the Chitauri invasion had used. It was supposed to have been in SHIELD custody, but with HYDRA inside it, of course someone had managed to take it. So we were trying to find it.

The biggest surprise during that time was, perhaps, when Darcy came to us, asking for sanctuary, not for her but for a very good friend of hers, and his people... as it turned out that 'friend' was more than that, it was actually her lover, the rest were his team; they were SHIELD... or former SHIELD, because our life couldn't get any freakier. Except it could, as we soon learned: the man in question was none other than Phil Coulson, Fury's former third in command...

There was no doubt that the only reason we ever allowed any of them into our homes was that Darcy vouched for Phil, for all of them... and that the youngest member of the team happened to be none other than BlueCloud... though her real-name was Skye, or at least that was the name she'd chosen for herself, after erasing everything about her with some clever hacking. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made.

It took several weeks, but while most of the 'outside world' was still reeling with the fall of SHIELD, and all the information that had been unexpectedly dumped in the internet (because Rogers and Romanoff were even more stupid than any of us imagined possible and went and put everything in SHIELD, and HYDRA, servers online); Darcy and JOCASTA, and later on Skye, JARVIS, FRIDAY, Dad and even Aylen worked together to get everything that might be in any way dangerous out, but we were aware that we couldn't get to everything, and some people might have managed to copy at least some things before we got to them.

Still, while most of the world was still trying to fully process the fact that SHIELD, a super-secret organization that was supposed to be devoted to the protection of the world, had been infiltrated by the epitome of villains, from its very inception; meanwhile we were working on making sure that no villains would remain free, and on making sure that those agents who were not HYDRA, and had lost their job, standing and reputation due to that mess, had some safety, for them and their families. It somehow eventually morphed into them becoming a new security agency, a sub-group of the UN Peacekeepers (they worked on the same level as them, though the former Agents' focus were the people and situations normal Peacekeepers might not be able, or simply not know how to deal with).

It was a good deal, and even Maria Hill ended working with them, leading the group (so they could be separate from us, and no conspiracy theorist might one day begin yelling that the Starks were creating their own militia or something) along with Phil Coulson. Darcy and Skye worked as intermediaries between them and us.

There was a bit of a hiccup when Skye disappeared for a few days, only to then come back with her boyfriend, former Agent Grant Ward… who also happened to be a former HYDRA Agent. Hill had tried to attack him, only for Skye to defend him, Phil and Darcy choosing to take Skye's side (though it was obvious Phil didn't quite agree with her choices). We didn't know for sure how Skye managed to convince the others to let her boyfriend stay, but she did; and eventually there were even other former-HYDRA that joined (though not without a loyal Agent who would vouch for them, and thorough testing to make sure they wouldn't betray them again).

When we were finally (mostly) done; when we knew our family was safe, and the Peacekeepers were working well with the UN and most countries; not everyone trusted them yet, but we were getting there, slowly but surely. We weren't like SHIELD, we weren't about to try and impose us, our actions, on anyone, not our country, and certainly not others. Even the things we could do to help them still had to be their choice. It might make things slower, but if it allowed for people to learn to accept us, to embrace those different than them, then it was a small price to pay.

Things got a tad complicated in early January of 2017, when an explosion in central London made everyone go practically crazy. The government intermediary we had to deal with: Mycroft Holmes did not trust us, did not want us there; until some blonde man with a military bearing, accompanied by a much taller one with dark-ringlets of hair and wearing a Belstaff coat, went straight to him and began whispering. None of us knew exactly what was said, though later on, Sharon Carter's comment that the blonde, Dr. John Watson, was in fact her little brother (and apparently living with the other man, Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective and younger brother to Mycroft Holmes) at least explained why they'd spoken in our favor.

I traveled to London for that, intent on healing everyone I could. What I wasn't expecting was when Helena popped in briefly to explain what exactly had happened, and why. And when later that same day Loki and I felt the considerable rush of magic coming from the east it really did not help matters any. So much magic so suddenly… it wasn't normal. Also, Rose worried us, she was so quiet, eyes fixated in something seemingly only she could see. That was perhaps the first time I began wondering about her possible gifts.

A week passed before Helena dropped by again. She looked absolutely devastated. I didn't even get everything she was saying, nothing more than half broken words and phrases, and sometimes mixing different languages even. She eventually fell asleep on me, which didn't make things any better. Much as a part of me might love having her so close, my eldest hadn't acted like that since long before my past life's death. What was happening wasn't normal, and I just knew I had to do something to make it better, anything.

"What are you going to do?" My Maverick asked me quietly as soon as I left the room where Helena was sleeping, more than a little restless.

"Can you help me track her steps the last few hours?" I asked in turn.

"You're planning on finding this man, this Stephanos." He wasn't asking, he knew me well enough to be able to deduce it.

"I've been planning it all along, but we had that problem with HYDRA, and I didn't want to put any pressure on Helena, but this..." I broke off, the beginning of tears almost chocking me. "I cannot stand this Fintalë-haryon (trick-prince). Helena… she's my girl, no matter how old she might be, if she's technically older than me. She's my child, and I need to take care of her, I need to, I..."

I broke off, a feeling so close to impotence weighing me down so badly that I felt like I'd drop to my knees any moment. But I couldn't, I couldn't collapse, there was no time to let the misery have me. Because my daughter needed me and I just needed to do something, anything.

"I always knew you'd be a perfect mother, from the very first day you told me you were pregnant… before that even." Maverick whispered as he kissed my hair tenderly.

It was almost easy for Loki to track down where our daughter had been last. He didn't offer to go with me; he knew that was one thing I needed to do on my own, so I absorbed the information he offered me through our bond and then used the Shadow Paths to get to Greenwich Village, in NY.

It was a bit of a surprise, to find myself in the same city, and not even that far away from Stark Tower, but I chose not to focus on that, instead I went to knock on the door, which a young woman (early twenties perhaps) of Japanese-American descent in a maroon tunic-like attire and simple sandals opened, looking at me questioningly:

"Hello," I greeted her. "My name is Arianna Hvedrungr and I'd like to talk to Dr. Stephen Strange please, if he's available."

She obviously wasn't expecting that. I could also tell she felt very protective of Dr. Strange, in an entirely platonic manner.

"You may ask him if we could receive me." I tried to reassure her that I wouldn't be forcing my way in, then something else occurred to me. "Tell him I'm here about Elaine."

I wasn't even sure what made me decide to use that name, instead of the one I'd actually given my daughter all those years prior… except it seemed right, somehow. I also knew it was as important as the name Stephanos, and that had to count for something.

Less than two minutes later the door was opened again, by none other than Stephen Strange:

"What do you know about Elaine?" He half-demanded (I wasn't willing to search too deep into what the other half of his tone meant, there was just something wrong with the mere possibility of a man like Stephen Strange begging…).

"Stephanos..." I said simply.

Somehow it was enough, because before I could say anything else I was being pulled inside through several halls, a staircase or two, and into what looked like a private study.

"Who are you really?" The sorcerer wanted to know.

"My name, like I told the young lady who first opened the door, is Arianna." I assured him. "Arianna Maria Grayson-Stark Hvedrungr."

Dr. Strange's eyes widened noticeably, but he said nothing. I knew who he was, of course. I'm sure the whole world knew who he was. The genius neurosurgeon (and asshole, according to many stories I'd heard) who had permanently damaged his hands in a car accident the previous January… and just like that a lot of stuff began making sense. I still had no idea how he'd become involved with magic, but that would come up later.

"What do you know about Elaine, and about Stephanos?" He asked me, hesitant.

"I know they're a match, souls bound to the end of time, even if they may not always find one another in life." I told him kindly. "And I know because I am Elaine's mother… though she goes by Helena nowadays..."

"Helena Lokidottir..." He breathed out.

I had no idea how much he might know already, though he obviously knew something. That was good. At least it meant I wouldn't have to try and convince him that matches were real, or about magic. Those details were already taken care of. And so we began talking…

As it turned out, he knew a lot. More than I was expecting. Another thing I wasn't expecting was what had happened in Hong Kong days earlier (when we'd sensed the huge magic), the idea that the world had been in such danger and we hadn't know… it didn't sit well with me.

"Will you take me to her?" He asked me in the end. "To El… Helena?"

"I can do one better." I told him with a soft smile. "I can bring her here."

I could see in his eyes how much he loved her. It didn't matter if I didn't really know him. He loved my daughter, as much as she loved him, they were a match… that was enough for me. So I focused on my bond, the whole telepathic communication was still a bit of a new thing for us, but I managed to get in touch with my love, tell him to get Helena to NY as soon as possible.

"You're staying?" He was obviously confused.

"You must have injured after what happened in the last few days." I said for all answer. "Take me to them, I'll help them as much as I can."

At least with them I didn't need to hide my abilities, or try and give an excuse for them. It was liberating in a way, to be able to help without having to worry about it.

When Helena arrived and embraced me, whispering her thanks in quiet elvish before going and practically falling into her match's embrace, that made everything absolutely perfect.

 **xXx**

I'm not sure whose idea the party was. Though I'm quite sure dad was behind it getting as big as it did. Every year he tried to get me to agree to a birthday party, but aside from the one when I'd turned twenty-one, I'd refused every single time. So when someone gave him an excuse, a party was soon arranged. It was at least a good excuse: the new Peacekeepers were fully established. The situation in London had shown the world that they could be trusted. Also, our family had never had it better, we were all incredibly happy. Helena and Stephen took the opportunity to announce their engagement. It was one more thing for us all to celebrate.

What I certainly didn't see coming was when Rose rushed to me, she'd been playing with the Maximoff twins, two Peacekeepers, and gifted. She'd become attached to them seemingly from the moment they met. And then she went to me, climbed onto my lap and whispered in my ear:

"Can I tell you a secret Mama?" And of course she could, and I knew she knew that. "One day I'm going to marry Pietro..."

I really had no idea what to say to that.

* * *

No, I never do explain how the twins came to join this insane family... at first I wasn't sure where to put it, and later on it just didn't seem that important. If you wanted to see it, I'm sorry, I promise to do better next time. Also, hope you liked how things with Helena happened this time around...

See ya in two weeks for the final piece in this AU! (Civil war is coming! Or well, not exactly... can it still be called a Civil War when Iron Man won't be there to oppose Captain America... yeah, things are gonna get messy... and I'm not even gonna try to apologize for that, or make excuses about it). See ya!


	3. Keeper

So... here we go, the third and final part of this particular AU. This is the one fic where I go most into the Civil War, though a very different take on it when compared to canon, or even what will end up happening in the main timeline. This is actually probably the fic where I move most ahead in time, while keeping with the events I've planned for the main timeline (in other fics I've dealt with serious time jumps, but without going into the events that I'm planning for the future of the main timeline, like Civil War, and Thanos... here you'll get a tiny taste of what's coming, though of course differently than what will be actually happening in the main story).

Warning: The Rogers of this AU is heavily influenced by Civil War and what it made me feel, so if you don't like him, that's why. I absolutely hate MCU-canon Rogers ever since. Don't worry though, he'll never fall that far in my main timeline, nor in most of my AUs... this one was in part to express all my Civil War feels, and in part because my muse insisted that this would be the logical consequence of everything showed in previous chapters. Hope you'll agree with me.

So, that's that. On with the chapter!

* * *

 **Keeper of Peace**

We all wish for Peace, and for a way to keep it, always. 

We knew, from the moment the 'Accords' started, that they were going to be a problem. We were doing good with the Peacekeepers and the UN, with the world-wide alliance, so good that at times we forgot we weren't the only ones out there. In the two years following the fall of SHIELD (and the reveal of HYDRA) things had gone well. Perhaps a bit shaky at first, but it hadn't taken more than six months to stabilize.

Things with the mutant community had mostly settled down since the last big problem with the Worthingtons and their so-called cure (which, as was proven eventually, was neither a cure, nor actually permanent), years before. The Fantastic Four had been mostly retired for a long time, and while the Defenders were a bit of an issue, they limited themselves to their own territory, and so they weren't our problem (not yet). The Avengers were another matter entirely.

They were a problem, and a big one. Their wild chases after what HYDRA Agents still remained loose had brought them to many different places, a good number of them out of our country. With no warning, no authorization, the governments did not like that. And Rogers' hunt for his old friend wasn't any better. It was actually worse, since he never explained to anyone what he was doing in those countries then (doubt very much he'd have been able to explain that one).

We weren't doing much better on our own search; but then again, we weren't trying as hard as we could have either. It wasn't really a priority for us.

One particularly good moment came when General Ross went to jail, finally. Initially we hadn't been too interested in him, other than making sure he wouldn't be able to get anywhere close to the Tower (and of course, the Banners), and then Skye found out, almost by accident, that the man was to become the new Secretary of Defense. None of us were fools, we knew how dangerous that could be, not just for Bruce and his family, but for all of us. Dad actually took a personal interest then, and soon the president was receiving a most detailed file, which included all the illegal acts Thaddeus Ross had committed in his life; just half were enough to ensure he'd never see the outside of a jail ever again. Not even Betty complained when all was said and done (in fact, I could almost say she was relieved, her husband and son were safe…finally); Bruce was evidently surprised, he'd been running from Ross and his men for so long, with no one before dad caring enough to help him… he probably had a hard time processing the change in situation. All in all, we were doing quite well.

When the 'Accords' were first sent to us, we knew it was a courtesy on King T'Chaka's part. They were his idea after all, and he respected us enough to give us a heads up, and to be willing to accept our input. The first thing we had to discuss was the matter of anonymity. Which we did through a heavily encrypted video-call (to make sure no one would be able to hack in and find out what we were talking about)

"I understand wanting there to be accountability, of course I do." I tried to explain things to them. "But this goes beyond that. You know what my husband and I are capable of, just like we know you are more than human as well." I waved my hand in dismissal of their sudden tension. "I have no idea what makes you all different exactly, nor do I care. The fact remains. Whether you plan on signing the Accords in order to do your thing in an international scale, or keep yourself within your own borders, that's up to you. But the things I do, I do them to help. The Accords would require that I sign, with my name. Have you any idea what would happen the moment that became a matter of public record? I'm in enough danger of kidnapping and worse just being the eldest daughter of Tony Stark, if the world found out what I can do? And even if I'm capable of defending myself what about my daughter? Or my little sister? It's one thing to put myself in danger for something I believe in, and an entirely different one to put my loved ones in danger. And what about those who might not have the resources to keep their families safe?"

"What do you propose then?" King T'Chaka asked seriously.

"We propose teams and code-names." My match took over. "Levels of responsibility. Where a team knows all the identities, but the UN connection only knows the identity of the team-leader. If others wish to reveal themselves, they might; if not they have a right to keep their civilian identity a secret."

"What if someone not the team leader commits a crime?" Prince T'Challa inquired, intrigued by the proposal.

"It's the team-leader's responsibility, unless he chooses to take that protection away, if the person in question acted against orders for example." My husband elaborated. "In that case his identity would be revealed in private to the necessary authorities. Then, depending on the crime, and the punishment, a cover would be created to account for the punishment, or their identity would become a matter of record. That, of course, would come in a case by case basis."

The argument went on for a while longer, but in the end we all managed to agree, for the most part. The same level of anonymity would also be granted to all but the leaders of a gifted group: like the mutants, unless they committed a crime.

The hardest part was regarding the magical community. Mainly because, for the same agreement to work for them, first most covens would need to agree to an alliance among themselves, and choose representatives; and they'd have to be willing for their names to be known, at the very least to the pertinent people in the UN. It was a risk, a big one for a society so used to existing in absolute secrecy. But most of them saw that such secrecy just wasn't possible any longer.

No one said it, though I was quite sure we all agreed on whose fault the whole thing was: the Avengers. Which is why it probably surprised no one when Director Ross (Everett Ross, former CIA Agent and the man who'd been put in charge of the new UN group dedicated to dealing with 'superheroes'; his second in command was Agent Sharon Carter, who also acted as liaison with Hill and the PK) decided they should be the first team to officially sign the Accords. Not that his plan stood much of a chance of working considering that Captain Rogers refused to so much as talk about the Accords, much less sign them; and his team followed his lead. We honestly had no idea if they were being horribly blind, willfully ignorant, terribly naïve or just downright stupid (not sure which one would have been worst).

In the end the Avengers were a no-go, but once Ross gave up on that front we managed to gather enough people to make the kind of event he wanted. An event was arranged in the Vienna International Center, a public ratifying of the Accords. So the world could see that superheroes were willing to listen to them, to respect their choices, their freedom, that we were all equal, despite our origins, and our genetic codes.

Maria Hill and Phil Coulson were signing in representation of the Peacekeepers; Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr represented the mutant community, with the addition of Scott Summers and Marie Howlett who signed up as leaders of their respective teams of X-Men; Reed Richards signed for his own team (even though everyone knew who the Fantastic Four were already, they still followed the rules anyway); Daisy 'Skye' Johnson had presented herself as 'Queen' of the Inhumans, specifying that most of them had no interest in any 'superheroing' but all the same she'd also be leading a small team who'd do their best to work with the Peacekeepers; there were of course many others, and eventually a group formed by Stephen Strange, Piper Halliwell, and Cassie Conant presented themselves as representatives of the magical community as a whole. It was certainly a mixed group.

We (the family) had technically signed already. Dad, Bruce, Peter, Harry, Pietro and Wanda were technically PKs, and had formed another sub-team, much like Skye's Sentinels, Rhodey was their leader, as dad had made a suit for him (called it War Machine), and Uncle Rhodey was willing to put his name down for it. Thus, he was the only one who knew who Iron-Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, the Goblin, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch actually were. Helena would be working with Stephen, and thus was considered part of the magical community. While my Maverick and I had no intention of doing any superheroing; we'd signed the Accords under what we liked to call the 'Guardian' clause. It meant that, in case of an emergency we'd do what was necessary to protect those that needed us; but we'd never go looking for a fight. We wanted to shield, to defend, and in my case to heal. The UN was quite happy to go with that. Also, my gift was so rare and so special they were willing to keep my identity as much of a secret as possible, so everyone outside of Ross and the PKs soon came to know me simply as Nightingale…

The event that day went quite well, even with the obvious absence of the Avengers, and I was beginning to believe things might be fine… which was probably why something just had to happen right then: the Winter Soldier was found.

That part at least wasn't too bad. Apparently the Soldier… no, James, James Barnes had been living in Romania for a while. Somehow managing to go unnoticed by both the Avengers and us. He probably would have continued the same way if it hadn't been for that accident. An old building, the kind where no people should live, yet they did, had collapsed. No one knew for sure if Barnes had been there from the start, or if he'd gone in there to get the survivors out, in the end enough people had seen him, until someone recognized his pictures from some of the SHIELD-HYDRA files we hadn't been able to take out of the web.

It hadn't taken long for the authorities to take him in. According to reports he didn't want to go, he'd tried to run away even, but he'd never outright attacked anyone. One of the officers even went on file saying that Barnes could have gotten away if he'd just pushed him a little harder… though that would have thrown him onto the busy street. In the end he'd valued the life of an unknown man over his own freedom.

Dad was all over it, the moment the news reached us. The BARF might have been half-joke when he first created it (a multi-million worth joke, but still), yet once that was said and done, other uses had been found for the device. From studying old fights and tactics, to sharing old memories and even getting over traumas. If that didn't work there was still my magic, and Stephen believed that one of the relics the old Sorcerer Supreme kept in Kamar-Taj might be useful too.

Ross didn't even try to fight us to keep Barnes, especially not after having seen the cliff-notes version of the collection we kept regarding the Winter Soldier's 'programming' (meaning torture and brainwashing). All he asked was to keep everything above board, public records. We knew what he wanted, it wasn't just helping a man who'd been suffering for way too long; it was showing the world that the Accords could help the gifted as much as they helped humans; so those gifted still on the fence wouldn't fear it.

It was a good plan, and then Steve Rogers and his Avengers had to go and ruin it. Or at least they tried. It was a mess. Most of us were still in Vienna, helping guide the gifted who'd arrived after the public ceremony, either to ask us questions, sign themselves, express their doubts, it was all valid, all important. Carter Hall had arrived at one point, bringing with him a young couple, reporters both, gifted both, part of a group that were still on the fence about the Accords; they'd had bad experiences regarding government control in the past, just like the JSA.

Dad and Uncle Rhodey had gone ahead to Germany, to the PK HQs where Barnes was being kept for interrogation, and until arrangements could be made for a flight to NY. That was when the Avengers attacked.

By the time we arrived, it was too late, the attack was long since over. For the most part things didn't seem to be too bad. Ross seemed to have a concussion or something Hill and Coulson were a bit injured as well, Sharon was spitting-nails mad. Barnes was still in containment; apparently by his own choice, as he'd refused to run, even when he'd the chance. Dad was gone…

"What do you mean dad is gone?!" I demanded, the moment that part registered with me. "Where the hell is my dad?!"

"Ms. Stark..." One of the UN representatives.

"I don't want stupid platitudes." I snapped, glaring at him. "I want to know what's happened to my dad and why you allowed it to happen?"

I was probably being unfair, but the idea of losing dad simply terrified me.

"The Black Widow knocked him out and the Falcon took him away." Phil interfered. "When it became obvious they wouldn't be able to take Barnes… Tony got distracted after Sharon was knocked around, the Widow took advantage of that distraction to drug him, knock him out; then the Falcon took him away. It is our belief they intend..."

"An exchange." I hissed. "They intend to make us give them Barnes, in exchange for my dad."

"You know the UN will never agree to that." Hill stated coldly. "Barnes might not be a bad man but this is not how things..."

"Shut up!" The twins snapped at Hill in unison.

"Are you really that cold-hearted lady?" Pietro asked her in a drawl. "I mean, her dad is in trouble and you don't care."

"She doesn't." Maverick stated coldly. "Then again, we've always known that. It's a good thing we've never expected more from Ms. Hill."

"Ms. Stark?" Ross called to me.

When I turned he was looking at me intently, waiting to see what I'd choose. For all intents and purposes, the paperwork to release James Barnes into our custody was signed and sealed already. Which meant that I could very well approve of the exchange; it wouldn't win me any favors and might even make things harder for the Accords, and for my family in general, but I could do it, if I wanted to.

"FRIDAY." I called loudly. "Call Darcy, tell her what's going on. Also, arrange for a Stark-Jet to pick up Barnes and get him to NY asap."

"What are you going to do?" Several people asked me at once.

I ignored most of them, they didn't matter any longer, my whole focus was on my dad, and on what I was about to do...

"I'm going to show the good captain and his Avengers why it's a bad idea to mess with the Princess of Death..."

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

Captain America and his Avengers entered the Leipzig/Halle Airport in a loose formation. There was some annoyance, that no one seemed to be interested in getting Stark back, not even his daughter or his wife. Romanoff and Barton had been so sure the plan would work. Rogers had felt bad about it at first, but after talking to Stark for just a short while he'd realized the man was nothing like Howard. Howard had been a friend, yet Anthony Stark… it was disappointing for the captain; though perhaps it might explain why no one seemed too interested in getting him back (at least in his head it did).

In any case, he wasn't really worried. Natasha'd had no trouble hacking the UN network and finding out about the plan to put Bucky on a Stark Jet bound for New York. Steve couldn't allow that. He couldn't allow his friend, the only person he'd left of his past, of his happier times, to be taken away, treated like a criminal when he was just a victim… He'd tried to explain things to the people who'd first arrested him, but they hadn't listened. They just kept going on and on about the Accords, and how good they were supposed, they couldn't see how dangerous they were. Governments were corrupt, people had agendas, the Accords would hurt them, not help them; and Captain America would make them see that…

At no point did it occur to Rogers that he'd no idea what the Accords were about. He'd never read them, had never cared to. Truth was that Captain America had believed himself the ultimate authority for so long… he'd heard his own legend so many times he'd come to believe it himself. He'd forgotten that no man is right all the time, that no man can be above all others, that all people are answerable to others…

The Avengers were so sure of themselves… they had no idea what was coming their way.

It didn't take long before they all caught sight of the Stark Jet, parked inside one of the hangars near a corner of the airport. A moment later they noticed something else, the figure standing just outside the hangar itself: Arianna Stark-Hvedrungr. She was standing there, in a short-sleeved, floor length, coral pink dress with a black collar, a pair of silver looking bracelets on her wrists, a pendant around her neck of some bird with its wings spread, her auburn hair down and swaying gently in the breeze, reflective sunglasses on her eyes, though she pushed them up her head soon enough. She looked much like she did in every magazine and TV add where she'd ever appeared.

The second thing the Avengers noticed was that James Barnes was nowhere in sight.

"Isn't she here for the exchange?" Barton asked louder than entirely necessary. "Or does she just not care about her old man?"

"It changes nothing, the jet is right there." Romanoff replied evenly.

Wilson said nothing, though inside he wondered if he was the only one who thought something was way off.

"I suggest you put my dad down captain." Arianna spoke the moment the Avengers got less than six yards away from her.

"Ms. Stark..." Rogers began.

"I said, put him down." There was a hint of steel in her tone.

"Where is Bucky?" Rogers demanded instead.

No answer was forthcoming, the auburn-haired woman just narrowed her eyes. Wilson could have sworn she made him uncomfortable, and she wasn't even staring at him. That was the moment when he knew for sure that, somewhere along the road they'd made a mistake, they had miscalculated or something. Things were not going to go their way, no matter what any of the others thought. He wondered how they could be so blind to it… To the fact that the young woman before them didn't actually look like most society girls, or rich women… no, she held herself like a fighter, like a warrior… Rogers had underestimated her, hell, they all had, and they were going to pay for that oversight.

Finally Rogers did as told and put the unconscious Tony Stark on the ground. What they weren't expecting was when, less than two seconds later, a young man appeared by his side for a fraction of a second, and then they were both gone.

All the Avengers faltered. Arianna just smiled, an almost predatory grin.

"What the hell was that?!" Barton demanded.

"That was Quicksilver." The hazel-eyed answered blandly. "He's with me."

Wilson wondered just how many were with her… Did it even matter?

"Where is Bucky?" Rogers insisted. "Who do you think you are keeping him prisoner?"

"Prisoner?" She almost snorted, almost. "Where did you ever get that idea?" She waved a hand before an answer could be given. "No, honestly. I've no idea where your delusions come from, because that's all they are. I'll tell you this, though. I'm on the side of the law, the opposite side of where you are. I suggest you think it over very carefully before you give a single step more, Captain Rogers. Before you try what you're thinking of trying. You're still in time to walk away. If you don't…"

She didn't finish her sentence, but Wilson didn't need her to. By the way Barton snorted it was obvious that he didn't believe her, Steve's own expression, full of disapproval, of paternal disappointment, it was obvious enough what he thought. Natasha though… she looked cautious. He remembered something she'd said once, when she told them about her time spent as Natalie Rushman, she'd told them about the Stark heiress, who fought better than the so-called bodyguard… not as well as the Black Widow, of course, even if the chick had managed to catch Romanoff by surprise, but still.

"Tell me Captain, do you know what the press calls me?" The girl asked, apropos of nothing.

"Miss Stark..." Rogers began.

"Suppose some call me that." She shrugged, seemingly without a care in the world. "Though it's Mrs. Stark-Hvedrungr nowadays, you know? I have a husband, a daughter too." She shook her head. "Not the point. I didn't mean that. I mean what the press likes to call me. I'll give you a clue, it's connected to the name they used to give my dad, before Afghanistan: they called him the Merchant of Death. Still call him that sometimes… even though SI hasn't produced a single weapon for nearly a decade now..."

Rogers didn't answer.

"Princess of Death." It was finally Romanoff who spoke. "They call you Princess of Death..."

"Exactly!" The 'princess' in question smiled, big and completely fake. "Dad much prefers calling me Angel of Death… though I suppose that's neither here nor there..." Her eyes narrowed the slightest bit before she added. "Thank you Natalie..."

The shock was big enough Romanoff couldn't fully hide her surprise.

"What? Didn't expect me to know?" There was laughter in those hazel eyes. "Please! We knew the moment your name appeared as a candidate to become Pepper's PA. Natalie Rushman… the perfect PA… too perfect to be true, really? Especially considering how especially awful all the other candidates happened to be. I wonder, was that really a coincidence, or did SHIELD fix that so you would get the job?"

"You couldn't have know." Romanoff almost spat. "You would have never given me the job if you'd known!"

"Ever heard the saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" The wide smile was back, though it seemed to be quite real that time, full of mischief and challenge.

"I don't care about any of that." Rogers interrupted. "Tell me where you have Bucky!"

"Oh please! You're beginning to sound like a broken record Captain!" She drawled.

Wilson was about to say something, perhaps try and convince Rogers to try a different approach. When Barton surprised them all by pulling out his own weapons.

"That's it, enough chat." He decided.

Wilson was truly shocked when he shot an arrow at the young woman's feet, though she didn't so much as flinch. Which only seemed to infuriate Hawkeye even more. Enough to make him draw a second arrow and shoot again, higher…

And then came yet another shock, as suddenly Arianna Stark was holding a bow of her own. She shot three arrows in quick succession, one shattered Barton's arrow (something Wilson didn't even know was possible), the second hit Barton in the foot, causing him to curse; while the third landed on the ground, and immediately released a bluish-gray smoke.

"Is that a dendrotoxin?!" Romanoff yelled, shocked. "That's property of SHIELD!"

"Actually it's property of the UN and its Peacekeepers." Arianna informed them evenly.

Barton was unconscious by then, and both Wilson and Romanoff were swaying. Rogers was the only one unaffected, and he was looking beyond surprised by the developments.

"What?" Arianna asked, challenging. "Did you think I was just a pretty face? Here to talk your face off? Or perhaps a distraction?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm Arianna Stark-Hvedrungr. I'm no doll, and no arm-candy. I am the Princess of Death, and so much more you could never begin to comprehend, none of you. You made a huge mistake when you chose to mess with my family, and I'm here to show you just how wrong you were. Thinking yourself above everyone else."

"I don't..." Steve began, but Arianna didn't let him.

"That's exactly what you do Captain." She cut him off. "Fury was an idiot… well, I suppose for all intents and purposes he still is. He gave you too much power, never really taught you how much the world has changed. This isn't a time of war, when you justify everything as necessary for the peace, for the 'greater good'." Her expression twisted a bit at those words. "He especially never taught you that you're not the ultimate authority. You're not judge, jury and executioner, that's not how the world works." She shook her head. "We tried to make you understand. We knew this could happen, you know? Dad had you pegged from the start. But some wanted to believe you could be reasoned with. That once you read the Accords, understood them..."

"The Accords are wrong..." Rogers began, and Wilson could almost hear, word for word, the speech he'd been giving to them all time and again for the last month.

"Are they?" Arianna interrupted him again. "Which part exactly? And how would you know? You haven't read them! You haven't even tried. You're so self-righteous, so delusional, believing that you're always right simply because you're Captain America! That everything and everyone that does not follow your every order automatically has to be wrong. That's monumentally stupid." She closed her eyes briefly. "It matters not. The time for reasoning has passed. You had your opportunity to make things right Rogers, and you threw it down the drain. Now things are very simple. You're a criminal and under UN authority I'm bringing you in."

"Really?" Rogers voice sharpened as he took a stance. "You think you alone can take us?"

"First of all, there's no 'us'." She began enlisting. "At least not on your side. In case you haven't noticed yet, it's just you. Second, I could, if I had to, but I don't really need to." There was a smirk on her face then. "Who ever said I was alone?"

And then they were all there: Iron-Man, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, several agents fully equipped, and even more people in various attires. Individuals Wilson had only heard of, and even more he'd never known existed. He was right, they'd made a mistake; bigger than he could have ever imagined possible. By that point all he could ready do was raise his arms and surrender. No matter what, they were all screwed. Before someone shot him with something in the back that knocked him out the former para-rescue had a couple of seconds to wonder when exactly had things gone so wrong…

 **xXx Nightingale's POV xXx**

After the arrest things were quite insane for a while. I was in no trouble. I hadn't even risked my cover in the end; after all, all I did in the end was shoot three arrows, and talk a lot, the later was no surprise to anyone, coming from a Stark, and the former wasn't that interesting in the grand scheme of things. Apparently rich people were allowed eccentric hobbies. The biggest reaction my archery got was a couple of reporters asking what I liked about it (probably looking for a possible trend coming from my answers) and one inquiring why I'd never done it professionally, to which I explained it was just a hobby, and not something I ever wanted to do formally. Surprisingly enough no one ever thought to ask why I'd decided to take a bow of all weapons with me when I faced the Avengers… and even the 'heroes' themselves had paid so little attention to the details that none of them had realized I hadn't actually had it on me initially.

Really, if the world depended on 'heroes' like them, we'd all be doomed. Thankfully there were many others, people who truly deserved to be called heroes…

The true surprise came from the public response to the Avengers' arrest. After the initial shock and disbelief (which was quickly settled with a huge press conference where Director Ross explained, in detail, everything that had happened that day) the response was quite good. More and more gifted visited the Accords' website to read the online version of the document; we got inquiries about specific details and situations, and many of them began signing. A good number appealed to the Guardian clause; being willing to be on-call, so to speak, in case of an emergency, but not really interested in all the 'superhero business'. There were others who wanted nothing more than to live their lives, though getting in touch with us allowed them to get to know others in similar situations, and form support groups among themselves. For some it might have simply been a matter of knowing they weren't alone…

The rest of the people, those with no abilities, no enhancements, reacted positively as well. They felt safe, and were again willing to believe in heroes, to believe that they wanted to help, and that if mistakes were made, they were just that, mistakes; and if someone committed a crime, there would be justice for everyone. It was what the Accords were about, after all.

Things with Barnes went better than any of us could have predicted. In the end we'd decided to go with magic to deactivate his trigger, but after that the BARF was used to help him deal with at least some of his traumas, enough to allow him to live his life as a free man.

"I… I don't understand." He said one day. "Why are you doing all this for me? All the things I've done, all the people I've killed."

"Are you the Winter Soldier or are you James Barnes?" I asked him, trying to keep things simple.

"I… most days I don't really know." He admitted after what seemed like forever.

"Fair enough." I admitted. "Tell me then, do you want to hurt anyone?"

"No!" His response was immediate and almost visceral. "I've never wanted to hurt anyone! Well, in the war of course I wanted to hurt the Nazis, but they were psychotic murdering bastards, so of course we all wanted to see them dead… but not now!"

"That's exactly my point." I told him, smiling brightly.

"How can you believe in me when most of the time I don't even believe in myself?" He asked in a low, forlorn tone.

I took a moment before answering. Not quite sure what to say to explain things right. And then it came to me:

"May 30th, 1998." I stated evenly.

"What…?" He obviously wasn't an expecting that.

"What do you remember of that night?" I asked in turn.

I could see the moment it hit him, the shadow in his eyes that appeared every time the memories of the crimes he'd committed as the Winter Soldier threatened to overwhelm him. I hated hurting him, but at the same time needed him to understand where I was coming from… where me and my family were coming from.

"I'll tell you what I remember from that night." I went on, trying to keep all emotion from my voice. "I remember a little girl and her father going to a concert in Portland, it ended late, and it was dark when he was driving both of them home through the highway. It'd been a long day, and she was half-asleep in the back-seat. And then, something happened. Something happened that made the car go off the road. The car went into a tumble and in the end was so wrecked that the rescue services had no idea how to even get to the people inside when they arrived. The father was declared dead on site, and some believed the little girl to be as well… until one of the paramedics noticed she was still breathing… It was considered a miracle."

Barnes didn't say a word, but he'd gone very, very pale, and he was staring at me like he'd never seen me before. I lifted a couple of bangs of hair from my left temple, showing a scar I'd there, it was deep, yet close enough to my hairline that it wasn't noticeable most of the time; not unless I made a point of showing it.

"This was caused by the window breaking." I explained. "The glass scratched me while we were tumbling. The seat-belt kept me from being tossed around, but nothing could have stopped the glass. Still, it could have been much worse." I made a pause, looking him straight in the eye before I added. "Especially if the one who caused that accident had gone after me, rather than walking away..."

"You are that girl..." He gasped.

"I am that girl." I confirmed. "And you're the man who walked away. Instead of finishing the job, of killing me, you walked away..."

"I didn't know you'd survive." I wasn't sure if he was saying that to convince me or to convince himself, though I imagined it must have been what he said to his superiors… or would have, if they'd ever learned of my survival.

"You gave me a chance." I told him gently. "I've a feeling that was your choice, not HYDRA's..."

"You were just a child..." He tried to explain himself.

"I was, and thanks to you, I'm alive." I did my best to drive the point home. "I'm here and I have a new family. I have my dad, and little sister, a husband, daughters, friends… I have this amazing life, and it's in no small part thanks to the choice you made that day… You, James Barnes, not the Winter Soldier... So why wouldn't I want to help you now that I have the chance?"

I don't know if that conversation was really all that was needed. It was the last time we touched the topic. We all noticed he kept getting better, and that was good. He would never be the man he was before falling off that train, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. At the very least James seemed to have a better grasp of the modern world than Steve Rogers did…

 **xXx**

The trial of the Avengers was a mess of epic proportions. With Rogers all self-righteous, it drove more than a few people insane. Romanoff and Barton had tried to hide behind SHIELD, except SHIELD was gone, and what they'd once done for that particular organization did not help matters any. Wilson had it a bit easier, since he'd no 'dark past', but at the same time his recent choices put his honorable discharge and military pension in danger.

We stayed away from the proceedings for the most part. Only attending on the days when we were required to either provide testimony or for some questioning. My dad as he'd been held captive for a few hours, and me as I was the one who confronted them in the airport in Germany. There were also questions regarding Bucky's treatment; which weren't easy to explain, especially where it came to the magic used.

It ended eventually. Romanoff, Barton and Wilson managed to make an arrangement through which they joined the PKs (they were lucky Phil up spoke for them). Rogers had been officially discharged from the army; while he hadn't technically been an active part still, he had never been discharged either, or even declared officially dead, after the war (Barnes was in the same boat, though with him that fact had allowed us to have him officially listed as a POW, with all the benefits that implied, medically, economically and everything else). While Rogers managed to avoid jail (no one actually wanted to send a war hero to jail), he was no longer Captain America and would never be again. He was given a chance to build a new life for himself, a civilian life, and that was that.

"You know, sometimes I wonder if all this is my fault, somehow." I didn't even notice what I'd said until the words left my mouth.

"What…?!" My match was beside me in an instant, obviously not having been expecting that.

We were sitting on a swing in the little terrace/garden of our floor in Stark Tower. Helena was with Stephen, apparently helping him with his transition into the new Supreme Sorcerer; Rosie was on the 'school level', something Dad had arranged for after it became obvious that she, Aylen and Robbie were all geniuses; and it wasn't even just them.

"Just think about it." I muttered, closing my eyes tightly for a moment, my own words conjuring images in my mind. "If I hadn't been here, if I weren't Arianna Stark… well, things with Stane would have gone differently for sure, though I have no doubt dad would have handled it. But it probably wouldn't have happened so fast after his return, I was the one who set Darcy and Skye onto his trail, and he went nuts when he found out about that. Without that… Stane might have taken longer before trying again, and by then dad would have had his suit." Something else occurred to me. "And the world would know he's Iron Man… the world would know, and he'd be an Avenger. And maybe this tower wouldn't even be Stark Tower, but Avenger's Tower..."

"Ari..." He began, though I wasn't really listening by that point, half-lost in a world of my own mind's creation.

"If dad had been an Avenger… he'd have never kept quiet about Rogers' attitude." I went on. "He'd have never allowed it to get that far. And if the two of them had been working together to help Barnes… they could have been one team."

"And that team might have broken apart." My love interrupted me. "You're right that Tony would have never allowed Rogers' idiocies. But that doesn't mean the Captain would have listened… and how do you think the revelation of the Winter Soldier being responsible for the death of Howard and Maria Stark would have gone..."

"They could have handled it." I insisted.

"Perhaps." My husband shrugged. "But there are no guarantees. There are no guarantees that things could have been any better, or any worse without you. But my Nightingale, have you thought about what it would have meant for you, not being here? You're the one who brought Darcy and Skye into our insane little family, and with them their little team, and a good deal of what once was SHIELD. You're also the one who made Pepper and Tony see they were perfect for each other. And what about little Aylen? What about the twins? Without you here who'd have talked them down from their irrational fear and hate for all things Stark?" He shook his head, taking my hand in his. "We never talk about this, but we both know Pietro is Rose's match. It's not too important right now because she's a child, her idea of true love is that of family, perhaps a best friend… it'll be a while yet before she'll see him differently. But how would they have ever met if you, if we all weren't exactly who we are?"

He stopped at that, but I could almost hear what he hadn't said as if the words were whispered straight into my mind, my very soul: What would have been of us if you hadn't been here?

So perhaps no world could ever be perfect; perhaps for us to have one thing, another had to be sacrificed. The again, perhaps I simply had too high an opinion of myself… wouldn't be a surprise, I was my father's daughter after all…

And yes, yes I was. I was Arianna Maria Stark-Hvedrungr. After talking to Barnes, after speaking of my old life, and briefly acknowledging who I'd been I'd thought more about it in private. HYDRA was gone, hopefully for good this time; SHIELD was gone as well. Without such threats I could have reclaimed my old life, my old name, everything that had once been mine, my houses in Maine and Wales, the money, and so much more… and yet. They were just things. It's not like I needed any more houses, I had homes and they were enough (and far more important), the money was completely irrelevant to me. Though perhaps the most important part was that I simply couldn't picture myself as Silbhé Arianna Kinross Salani anymore. I hadn't been that girl since being six years old… In that moment, being twenty-eight… I had spent more than three quarters of my life being Arianna Stark; that was who I was used to being, who I liked to be. And whom I'd remain for as long as I could (until the name Stark stopped mattering and all that was left of me was the Nightingale… but thankfully that wasn't something I needed to worry about right then, not for a long time yet, hopefully…).

 **xXx**

We'd known from the start, from the very day when we sat in my bedroom, with my match and I side by side on my bed, talking about our future, that the day would come when we wouldn't be able to hide anymore. And that day came, in the summer of 2020, with a barrage of bullets, plasma blasts, spellfire and so much more… it was the second Chitauri invasion, and Thanos himself was leading it.

The true surprise was for him, though. Between Destiny (Irene Xavier-Darkholme of the X-Men), Muse (Cassie Blake-Conant of the Secret Circle), Phoebe Halliwell (of the Halliwell Clan), Angel (Raina Campbell of the Inhumans) and Chaos Rose (the code-name we'd given our daughter when talking about her gifts) we'd known enough to be prepared when the attack came. Teams of gifted were ready in each location where Thanos's army would attack, the various armies serving as a second line of defense, the human PKs focusing on keeping civilians safe and coordinating with the any gifted fighting.

It wasn't an easy battle, not by a long shot. But we won. It was a decisive victory, the final proof that our planet wasn't weak, wasn't primitive. We were good, we were strong, and we'd fight to protect what we loved…

At some point during the battle, help arrived. An army of Aesir, lead by Prince Thor Odinson, with help from his friends. They arrived to New York, where the main battle seemed to be taking place; where our family was. We didn't cower, though my love and I did make a point of staying out of their way. Helena was with her own match, leading the battle in China, based in Kamar-Taj. Our little Rose was in Stark Tower, she, Aylen and Robbie were officially the last line of defense for the children and families who'd taken refuge in Stark Tower. We weren't really risking them, the Tower was shielded magically thanks to the efforts of one of the magical covens we were allied with, and Iron Soul (Dad's protege, Harley Keener) stayed close to keep any possible Chitauri away from the tower (the shield would last longer if it did not need extra energy to keep direct attacks away).

For the battle my love and I were wearing gray-ish bodysuits from high on our necks to the tips of our fingers and toes, very much like the ones made for most of the PK. Except ours were completely lined in a mix of vibranium mesh and the synthetic version dad had created (the former part of a deal dad had made with King T'Chaka a year or so earlier) (The PK bodysuits only had synthetic vibranium mesh in strategic areas). Over that I was wearing a long-sleeved, knee-length plum colored dress and knee-high leather boots; my long, auburn hair tied back in a bun on the nape of my neck. My husband was wearing a green long-sleeved tunic-style forest-green shirt, with black trousers, black sleeve-less long-vest and leather boots; his own hair was still short and sun-bleached, making him look so very different from the young prince I'd once known (but still my love).

The moment none of us were expecting, or could have ever planned for, was the moment when Thor fell. I felt it, a shift in the air, in the energies, followed by the roar of every single Aesir in the vicinity. For all of three seconds I remained immobile. The Prince of Asgard was not my problem, he really wasn't. We were supposed to be staying away from him. None of us knew for sure what would happen if we were found, if my husband was found, but it probably wouldn't be good, considering the circumstances in which he'd left the Realm Eternal. And yet…

And yet I had memories of Thor, very old memories, of another life, of a time when he'd been a friend, almost a second brother, when he'd been a dear brother to my love… and I couldn't just stand there and do nothing. Before I knew it I'd teleported from my position (giving a quick psychic warning to my match so he'd know where I was going). I landed right beside the fallen thunder god, and the moment I appeared a spear was being swung in my direction.

"I can help him!" I yelled, even as I dropped to my knees and bent backwards to avoid the blade at the end of the spear.

"How?" Sif, standing beside us but moments later demanded.

"My name is Nightingale." I gave them the first name that came to mind (while still keeping my civilian identity concealed). "I can heal him."

Of course they didn't believe me, it didn't surprise me, a gift like mine wasn't exactly common (and a healer who chose to also be a warrior even less). All the same, they didn't get in my way, so that was good enough for me. I had no idea how they'd react once I began, though…

Healing was easy, at least to me. Of course some things required more work than others, and I couldn't actually heal everything. Old wounds, the kind that had already healed (even if they hadn't done so right) were beyond me. Delicate work was precisely that. I could set bones, could reconnect muscles, veins, ligaments, but the nervous system was completely beyond me. I also couldn't heal what I didn't know was there (which could be dangerous when it came to internal wounds). My empathy helped me know when a person was injured, and how badly it was, but there was still room for mistakes, and mistakes could be very bad… I respected my gifts, and the limits they had (the limits I had), but that didn't stop me from doing my best to help as many people as I could.

Thor's wound, while quite dangerous, wasn't that hard to heal. It was bad, and he was losing blood fast enough that he'd die if left untended; but I'd reached him in enough time. No nerves had been damaged, and while his lower left rib had been nicked, it wasn't broken; there was no damage to his stomach or intestines, the worst of the damage was a bruised spleen, a nick to his lung, and the half-severed vein which was causing him to bleed a lot. It took a lot of energy, but I managed to heal Thor alright. He'd need time and rest to recover the blood lost, and would have a notorious scar, but that was it.

I actually swayed when I was done, could feel my body temperature going down to compensate as some of the energy from my match began trickling through our bond. I didn't much care about that, and knew that as long as no one touched me on the face it'd go unnoticed.

"My lady!" One of the Warriors Three exclaimed as he supported me by the arm.

"I'm alright..." I assured him, taking deep breaths to focus. "That took more energy than I thought it would, that's all."

"You're a blessed healer." Sif murmured in awe.

"A mortal as a blessed healer." The Warrior added, the same emotion coloring his voice.

It was a phrase that was soon echoed across the battlefield.

So apparently none of the Aesir had seen me helping others, even though I'd done it a few times. I had no idea what the effects of that revelation might be, but the middle of a battle was not the time to focus on that, so I pushed the thought aside.

"I gotta go." I murmured, half-absently as I rose to my feet.

"My lady! You should rest!" Sif and at least two others called at the same time.

"The battle hasn't ended yet, I have things to do, places to be." I responded.

They were about to say something else, I had no idea what, when my magical senses screamed at me about coming danger. My response was completely instinctive as I pulled a vibranium dagger from the inside of my sleeve, spun around and threw it without quite aiming, trusting my magic to guide the blade. It was enough, I managed to hit the chitauri in the arm, before he could use the weapon in said arm to pierce Sif through. Another of the warriors then finished it off, before retrieving my blade and handing it over.

"That's a very good blade, my lady." He stated solemnly. "May I know your name?"

"You may call me Nightingale." I told him with a shrug.

I walked away then, only vaguely hearing the response one of the other warriors gave:

"Hey! Isn't that the name of the lady Loki used to talk about, the one of his dreams or..."

I didn't hear the rest, nor did I care. I had better things to think about. A battle was still being fought all around me, my match needed me, my family… my friends, they all needed me, I wasn't going to let them down.

Things went well. I found my husband again, fighting close to the twins, who had noticed my departure and made sure to stay close and cover his back if necessary. I took a second to thank them once I returned, before diving back into the melee.

 **xXx**

We won the battle.

No one knew for sure if Thanos was dead or not, but we'd taken down enough of his army we probably wouldn't have to worry about him for a good while; several decades at least, possibly longer. On the one hand, that meant that Rosie would probably be involved the next time; on the other, that also meant she'd get to finish growing up in peace, and there was little I'd ever wanted more than that. With all the gifted around the world, even being a Stark wasn't considered as important as it had once been, the press didn't bother us as much as they used to. That would change, of course, especially since Ross kept insisting on training me to one day succeed him (he'd offered it to Sharon first but she refused, knowing that such a post was mostly a desk-job and she much preferred being on the field).

Two days later we were having breakfast in Stark Tower (I'd spent the majority of the day before in bed, recovering from the extreme drain after the battle and my subsequent overuse of my gift, healing everyone I could, with help from the top limit of elixirs before crashing). I had plans to go to Metro-General Hospital, where most of those injured in the battle had gone. A number of people there knew about me and what I could do (they'd all signed non-disclosure agreements, so as to be sure my civilian identity would be protected); I knew my love would come with me, if only to make sure everything went well. I wasn't surprised by his over-protectiveness, it was only natural with what had happened less than three days before.

All our plans were derailed but a moment later, with the next words to come out of our youngest daughter's mouth:

"Mama! Today I'm meeting grandma!"

I froze, we all did in fact. Since Rosie, like everyone else, was perfectly aware that both the women I'd considered my moms were dead, and she called Pep, Auntie Pepper, rather than grandma, there was really only one person she could be referring to. Loki and I just looked at each other in silence. A part of me wanted to ask if she really meant what I thought she did, how it was even possible; but the answer to the former was pretty obvious, and while the one to the later less so… Rose was a precog, everything was possible.

I never actually went to the hospital that day. It began with me purposefully delaying the simplest tasks, and then when I was finally ready, people kept needing me for whatever the reason. Even dad asked me to give him a check-over! Of course I knew what they were doing, but I really didn't mind. Truth was that I wasn't sure I was ready to face what we were all aware must be coming. It didn't matter how much we might have talked about it, how long we might have known, reality was entirely different from theoretical talks.

In the end the decision to confront reality or not wasn't really mine to make, nor any of ours really. I should have known, that once the Norns decided something must happen… there was nothing any of us could do to really avoid it. Destiny might be flexible, but Fate was another matter entirely, and I understood that. It wasn't even a matter of free will (I believed in that), it was necessity… I knew, I just didn't want to face it sometimes.

I was taking a moment to play with my daughter, little sister and the rest of the children in the Kids' Floor, when FRIDAY's voice unexpectedly called from the speakers:

"Mrs. Ari, a group of Aesir request a meeting." She informed me. "They're in the lobby."

My heart seemed to stop for a beat, and then Rose's squealing distracted me. She was so thrilled about meeting her grandma… a part of me wondered if she was expecting too much, or truly knew something we didn't (wouldn't surprise me, all things considered), a part of me also wondered if the Queen of Asgard was truly on the ground floor. I couldn't think of a time when she'd left Asgard (in my current life, or my previous one).

I was still half distracted by my line of thought as I exited the elevator into the lobby. Rose was holding my hand, and that day we were wearing the same style of dresses, mine short-sleeved, floor-length, coral pink with a black collar (I didn't notice it at the time, but it was actually the very same dress I'd worn that day in Germany, when confronting the Avengers), Rose's was short-sleeved, to just bellow her knees, red with an off-white collar. We stepped onto the ground-floor silently and came upon one thing I most definitely wasn't expecting:

The place was full almost to bursting. The twins were the first to react to our arrival, quickly adopting defensive postures before us. I could barely see beyond them. To the group of about half a dozen Aesir or so, and all the humans surrounding them, a few PKs, though the majority were in fact gifted, friends. And they were all standing tense, as if ready for battle…

"Pietro…?" Rose asked, with obvious confusion.

"Stay back, little rose." He told her. "We'll keep you safe."

"But I wanna meet my grandma!"

Rose's shrill cry had an instant effect, as all noise on the floor ceased immediately.

I reacted instinctively, twisting my hands and calling on a shield as a preventative measure. To my right, Wanda's hands sparked red, ready to throw her magic at whoever might so much as look at us wrong; to my left, Pietro had moved on instinct, scooping Rose up and holding her protectively against his chest, ready to run with her the moment things got dicey. Thankfully, while Rosie didn't seem to quite agree with him, she did not fight him either.

"Someone want to explain what the hell is going on here?"

Dad's voice broke the tense silence as he landed on the door, in his Iron Man suit.

"What are you all doing in my tower?" Dad demanded next.

After the recent battle there was little point in trying to keep the fact that he was Iron Man a secret. Enough people had seen him at some point or another, especially since he'd been forced to take off the face-plate a couple of times, and fully change his suit once, about halfway through the battle, when it got too banged up to work right.

"I swear upon the branches of Yggdrasil that I mean no harm upon you or yours, Man of Iron." It would have been impossible not to recognize Frigga's voice, so full of warmth, kindness, and a core of steel. "I'm here hoping for a chance to meet the lady to whom I owe my sons' lives, an opportunity to thank her..."

I couldn't help but wonder if I'd imagined the plural in a certain part of that sentence, and if it was indeed real, if someone besides me had noticed it.

"If something goes wrong, you run and don't look back." I told the twins softly in Romani, one of the few languages I knew and was fairly confident they wouldn't.

Rose didn't say a word as I walked past her, just looked at me in silence… a part of me wondered if she knew already what was coming. It wouldn't have surprised me, Rose had proven to have a very powerful Sight since the gift first manifested, when she was five. I didn't ask her anyway, instead I took a deep breath and began walking with as much confidence as I could summon. I was Arianna Stark-Hvedrungr, daughter of Tony Stark and Eileen Grayson, I was the Princess of Death, the reincarnation of an elven princess, wife of a Jotun and Aesir prince… I was iron and breeze, magic and light and chaos and peace… I was who I was always meant to be, nothing more and nothing less.

"That would be me, Your Majesty." I called, softly but authoritatively. "I am Arianna Stark-Hvedrungr, also known as Nightingale."

Everyone got out of my way instantly; though I noticed no one moved far; they were all still ready to fight, to defend me and my family if it was necessary. That fact filled me with pride and humility at the same time.

"You've done me and mine, and Asgard as a whole a great service, my lady." The Queen of Asgard stated formally as she bowed her head respectfully at me.

I curtsied back almost automatically, unable to help the feeling that I was missing something, that there was more to her words than just a thank you for healing Thor.

"I am a healer, Your Majesty." I replied serenely. "It's my nature to want to help. And my fortune to be able to do so."

She nodded at me once, saying nothing else, and I still couldn't shake the feeling that she knew so much more than she was saying. I couldn't help myself, and a part of me reached out to my love. I was actually surprised when realizing he was in the room, in a corner, away from prying eyes. I had no doubt that he'd jump to my side in an instant if it became necessary.

And then yet something else happened that none of us could have ever expected (except perhaps the precogs among us…):

"Could I prevail upon you to allow us to see my brother now, my lady?" It was Thor we spoke, voice full of respect and almost… reverence.

"What…?!" I couldn't help but giving a step back at that.

I had no idea what the hell had just happened. The words Thor had just said… they just didn't fit inside my head.

"I was told years ago that a Songstress with a gift for healing would one day save my life, and she would bring back he who I miss most, my dear brother." Thor stated eloquently.

"What brother?" Dad called with fake ignorance. "Your old SHIELD files said nothing about any brother. And I've hacked them enough times to know!"

"He may not have been born my brother, but he's my brother nonetheless." Thor replied evenly, though I could see the tightness around his eyes, sense his tension. "He's mother's son as much as I am, and always will be."

"What cause have you to believe he's here?" I couldn't help but ask. "That he's in any manner connected to me? Or that I'm even this Songstress you mention at all? It's not like I've ever sung before anyone but my closest family, and even if I had, there's no reason for you to have ever heard me do so."

I was missing something, yet I had no idea what. The situation was getting more and more out of my hands with every second, and I'd no idea how to regain control, or if it could even be done.

"Your speech-patterns, for one, my lady." Thor answered, and there was a hint of humor in his eyes, and his aura. "I've noticed that no mortals speak the way we Aesir do, none but you. Also, spell-crafting may not be my forte, but in a thousand years I've gotten to know my brother well enough, I can sense his magic in you..."

That was as far as he got, I could sense the shift in the energies a fraction of a second before Loki appeared beside me. He was still wearing the gray suit with a pale blue shirt he'd chosen earlier that morning, simple black dress-shoes to match. Though I'd no doubt that the moment he sensed any threat he'd summon his battle-attire and begin fighting.

He didn't even get to make any warnings, or threats, or say a single word at all; before my love could even open his mouth Thor was upon him. But the blonde did not attack my husband, no, instead he embraced my match. When the emotions hit me, they did so with the force as a tsunami, for several seconds I couldn't quite breathe, so strong was the mix of relief, joy and love… it was staggering.

"Brother..." It was all Thor said for the longest time.

No one seemed to know quite what to say, even dad appeared to have been rendered completely speechless; something I'm sure my Maverick would have enjoyed thoroughly, if it weren't for the position he found himself in, in that moment.

"Fear not, my lady." Frigga addressed me directly. "No one here will do any harm upon your match, or anyone else among your family and friends."

"And what about those still in Asgard?" I couldn't help but ask, eyebrow arched pointedly.

I believed in her, I couldn't help it; Loki had never stopped loving her, and that love colored my own opinion of her. But that did not change anything about the Allfather…

"Ten years can be a very long time, my lady..." She told me very softly, sadly. "Especially for a parent who believes that their child might be forever gone..."

"That may be so, but what can one expect when the parent in question hasn't shown any care for said child in centuries?" I asked in return, then took a deep breath. "I see no point in embellishing things, Your Majesty. You love my match, I have no doubt about that. But then again, your love has never been in question. Even Thor, while I couldn't be too sure about him, I never stopped having hope. The same cannot be said about the Allfather. The manner in which Loki took his leave of Asgard..." I didn't even want to think about that, the month that followed, or the day he came to me, finally. "To say things weren't good would be an understatement of epic proportions, I'm sure you're aware of that. And that's but the latest example of how your King is. I cannot trust he will treat my husband any better than he did the last time. I will not allow Loki to be hurt by him, directly or indirectly, ever again."

I could see that the Aesir Warriors didn't like my words.

"You don't have to like what I say about your King, I care not for your opinion of me." I told them all calmly but authoritatively. "Remember that this is not your world. Earth is not what it was when we believed you all to be gods. Yes, we are grateful for your help during the battle against Thanos. But that doesn't mean you're our superiors. This is still our world, your King is not our own. And he will never be."

"No, he's not." The Queen agreed before anyone could take offense to that. "He's aware of that, as am I." Her expression softened. "I know there's nothing I can say today that will make you believe that Odin truly regrets what happened that day, and many days before. I can only hope you, all of you, will give us the chance to prove we're honest in our regard, and our desire to reforge the bonds of family that we once believed to be forever lost."

I had no idea what to say to that, I really didn't. And yet, as it often happens, the choice wasn't really mine to make. I could vaguely hear Pietro's wordless exclamation, followed by a half-formed curse (which he didn't actually pronounce, he'd learned to control his vocabulary around my daughter). And a moment later Rosie herself was running right past me, and straight into the arms of the woman who had lowered herself to her knees gracefully just in time to receive her:

"Grandma!" Rosie called brightly.

And just like that, the choice was made.

 **xXx**

As it turned out, some people had known about Loki being alive pretty much since the day he'd landed in my garden (said people being Frigg and Thor and no one else). Though they'd no idea where he might be, thanks to his own magic shielding him from prying eyes. It was upon Rose's birth that even that changed. And not only because of our little one, but because Helena had joined us. Apparently the four of us coming together had created a sort of magical shock-wave that was felt all the way to Asgard.

Odin hadn't known what it meant, not at first, it was Frigga and Thor who first understood, for they were the ones still laying claim to Loki. Thor had wanted to come to Earth the moment his mother knew how to find us, but she managed to convince him to wait, that we wouldn't take his arrival right, not with everything that had happened, and especially not with Rose's recent birth and Helena's return to our lives.

In every battle he'd been involved in, the blonde prince had hoped we'd reveal ourselves (at least to him), yet we never did; it didn't help when he later learned we had actually been there, every single time, and purposefully did our best to stay out of sight. Frigga was the most understanding of all, she was a mother, after all. And, I think, she'd known all along that the day would come when hiding would no longer be an option for us.

All in all, things went quite well. The Allfather knew about us, but he was willing to leave us be, to wait until we were ready to meet with him. Queen Frigga understood we'd no intention of going to Asgard any time soon, not only because we weren't comfortable with the idea of being near Odin just yet, but also because we had family, friends, we had lives on Earth, and weren't about to leave them. In return plans were made for her to visit every so often. Thor was already living in NY, and he managed to convince my love to allow him to visit every so often, he was so earnest about reconnecting with Loki, and getting to know his family. And I think a part of Loki, just like me, remembered how the blonde had been once, in the distant past, how the two of them had been together; he… they both wanted to gain that back, or at least a fraction of it.

The rest of the Aesir didn't quite seem to know what to say or do about us. Queen Frigga had obviously chosen those who at least respected my Maverick to accompany her, so there was no resentment coming from them. I could see the surprise as they laid eyes upon my eldest, when she and Stephen stepped out of the shadows (or the Mirror Dimension) where the two of them, the new Master of the NY Sanctum and Stephen's former apprentice had been waiting to aid us in case a fight broke out against the Aesir; and the wonder as those same eyes turned towards Rosie. Children were something of a commodity in the Realm Eternal, where they all lived so many years, yet their fertility was so limited. I knew that, so it was perhaps not to surprising that most of them looked at my little girl as if she were the greatest miracle ever (I did wonder what they'd say when they eventually learned about her power, not just her Sight, but also her Fire… the time for that would come).

Things weren't perfect, of course not. But we had hope. For the first time since plans had been made and options considered while laying upon a bed in a mansion in Malibu (which didn't actually exist anymore, since the Mandarin had had the whole place bombed, sad as that memory might be) we had hope. And wasn't that fact both incredibly terrifying and absolutely exhilarating at the same time? We had no idea what tomorrow might bring, though I had a feeling it'd be interesting indeed… Then again, life was never anything short of interesting when you were part of a family like our own.

* * *

So what did you think? I wasn't going to go into a battle against Thanos, but I just had so many ideas... for Thor, and the Aesir and... yeah, I just had to do it. Hope you like how I handled things.

Next AU coming in three weeks. The X-Men are coming! And Darcy! (And that's all I'm saying for the time being). See ya all in Wintersong!


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